I hope you don't need to whip out your shooter on short notice. Perhaps you could announce to whatever the threat might be that it should wait until you remove the protective gear from your gun before it proceeds.
As counterpoint, every gun in my house, of which there is an abundance, is loaded, no locks, no safes, none of that nonsense.
Gun safety is treating every gun as if it's loaded, because it is. Gun training beyond knowing which end you hold and which end the bullets come out of seems frivolous. Everything else you should be able to figure out merely by looking it over for a few seconds. Guns are simple mechanisms and generally don't require endless hours of instruction as to their care and feeding.
Perhaps I feel as I do because I've been around guns my entire life and they don't frighten or fascinate me. Your mileage may vary.
Bob, I was raised around guns my entire life. I got my first rifles at 12. I can have my trigger lock off my gun in 3.2 seconds. Someone wants to break in takes me about 1.2 seconds to pop the pistol case nearby with its coded lock the guns are all loaded and ready to rock and roll.
Gun training helps avoid accidents and stupidity. Knowing how to properly break down your gun and put it back together in under a minute in pitch blackness is good training. Every owner should know how to properly clear jams, keep the gun clean and oiled, and how to check the components of a gun for wear & tear. Also, ammunition breaks down over time powder becomes less stable copper shells corrode. All of this is stuff you just don't learn picking up a gun and knowing which end to point.
I don't feel the need to carry everyday because, I work in an office building and the crime rate against people is low. Property crime is our biggest hassle here. Your more likely to get your air conditioner stolen than to have someone attempt to break in your house in my neighborhood.
Now, go 15 miles from here and its a whole other story. When I go to that part of town I carry everything I can think of from guns, to sledgehammers, to tear gas.
As a counterpoint, Addy's surrounded by retired Canadians, and trigger locks are required in most areas here. Mind you, our guns are typically for hunting, and very rarely used as a means of self-defence.
I have 3 kids that is why I use trigger locks. Also, if anyone breaks in my house they aren't going to be using my guns against me. My keys are on me every minute of every day.
I would say 95% of people around me are armed. Hell, in my neighborhood which is mainly residential I have 1 gun store within a block and another within a mile. In my area I would say you would find multiple gun stores within 2.5 miles of any point in town.
On top of that in Florida we can do private sales of guns. So I am free to load up and sell guns out of the trunk of my car or my living room if I so choose without any licensing required at all.
All this has one hell of an effect on curbing crime. We also have a police force that doesn't play games with criminals. Thanks to the patriot act my city has a former russian armored vehicle and a .50 caliber turret mounted machine gun for a city of just around 100,000. Our cops have shot many people in this area during the few standoffs criminals have tried.
The few gangs that tried to take off in this area found themselves dead or in jail very very quickly.