Ever wish you could secretly stash an AR-15 rifle inside your coffee table?
The Hunterdon County Democrat newspaper profiled a New Jersey company on Saturday that makes just the thing for you.
The company is called New Jersey Concealment Furniture, and it sells an array of products, including coat racks, coffee tables and night stands, that are built with secret compartments to store firearms. The designer and builder of the furniture, Dan Ingram, described his products as something “between locking a gun in a safe and keeping it under your pillow.”
The newspaper said Ingram has a longtime familiarity with guns, in part because of his hobby as a Civil War re-enactor. He told the Democrat his ancestors came from Georgia, where they fought for the Confederacy. He even uses the song “Dixie” as the ringtone on his cell phone, according to the newspaper.
The company’s concealment products start at about $165 but can be as expensive as $2,000 or more.
Here’s how the newspaper described a coat rack sold by the company:
The four-peg hardwood coat rack doesn’t call attention to itself. But if you know which peg to remove and how to use that peg as a magnetic key, a hidden drawer drops down, giving you quick access to whatever you’ve hidden there, be it a pair of mittens or a loaded 9mm semi-automatic pistol.
Ingram told the newspaper he gets about 5,000 hits on his website, njconceal.com, per day.
Photo via njconceal.com
So the weapons are out of sight and require a key to get to? Can’t say as I’d complain. Now, the tendency (as in the image) to store them loaded, though… that’s just irresponsible.
What style would this be, Revolutionary Moderne? I’ll have to peruse a copy of Modern Trailer the next time I am in a bookstore.
Hidden under a table? Perfect! It’s totally out of reach of kids who never play hide and seek!
What’s wrong with a gun safe?
Not my cup of tea.
But for those folks who want to have a weapon quickly ready for self-defense in their homes (I know, I know, but folks gotta right to be stupid), it seems like a more sensible system than leaving a loaded pistol in a drawer or on a high shelf on a bookcase.
The description of the coat-rack makes it sounds like the manufacturer is making a sincere effort to keep these things from being opened by accident or by curious unsupervised children.
That won’t help, of course, if the owner is the type to tell his four year old to remove a certain magnetic peg and bring him his AK-47 because “Daddy needs some personal time to fondle his gun”.
Or, if magnets are used as the “key” for these containers, for children who run around trying to stick magnets on things. And you know, the first time they stick a magnet on the table and a AR-15 pops out, they’ll be sticking magnets EVERYWHERE.
But customers would seem to be trying to prevent at least casual access to their firearms, if they feel compelled to keep them at the ready.