Every gun owner should have some means of securing their firearms. The gold standard in that regard is the gun safe. Having a safe you can secure your firearms inside is about as good as you can get and, if you can afford one, you should have one.

In many places, it’s required that you keep all firearms secured in such a way.

Minnesota isn’t such a place but plenty of people still use a gun safe. For one gun owner in Rochester, though, it didn’t help.

Rochester police say two shotguns, a gun safe, and some related “pewter devices” are missing from a Rochester garage.

Police responded to a report of a burglary that occurred at an apartment complex in the 2400 block of Highway 52 N, sometime between May 5 and 5 p.m. May 7, RPD Capt. Casey Moilanen said.

Well…how about that?

It’s easy to say that a gun safe shouldn’t be in the garage, but the truth of the matter is that a number of safes simply won’t fit through doorways. There’s really no other option but to leave them in the garage.

And really, why would you worry about it. A gun safe is large and heavy. It’s not something you just snatch and run for it with the safe in hand. It just doesn’t happen.

Yet, here we go.

The truth of the matter is that we all need to remember that we secure our weapons to minimize the risk of theft. However, it’s impossible to prevent theft. A criminal with enough time and patience can still take your stuff no matter how well you have it secured.

It’s probably a good idea to take whatever steps you can think of to minimize the chances of having all your guns stolen.

That’s more difficult in mandatory storage jurisdictions, though.

One thing you can do is hide your safe. The truth is that people recognize a safe when they see one. Keeping it out of sight is a big step toward securing your guns. I’ve seen some that are made to look like drink vending machines, thus hiding its true nature from others.

I don’t know that will be enough, though, since someone may decide to steal the machine.

People these days.

Regardless, though, making it look so that there’s nothing of value may keep certain parties from digging too deeply into what you’ve got in that garage.

Then, of course, you can keep the safe in the house if that’s remotely possible. It’s not always.

However, the big takeaway here is that “safe storage” isn’t necessarily safe. It’s just mandatory storage. If the purpose of such laws is to keep guns out of others’ hands, then what do you do when the entire safe is stolen?

Now, the bad guys can use whatever tools they need to gain entry, then sell the guns on the black market.

That doesn’t sound particularly safe to me.

Then again, telling me where and how I have to secure my guns has never sounded all that safe in the first place.