On some guns, the absence of bolts affects the trigger, i.e. you can NOT lock it down. Bolts are kept is a separate location. That is HOW I was taught to store weapons, it is also the way the Military store weapons. Trigger locks are a waste of money if you store weapons properly (i.e. NO BOLTS in the weapons).
When I was in the National Guard, every time we wanted to use our M16s and M60s, we had to drive about five miles to the nearest Police Station, for that is where the bolts were stored when the armory was unmanned. The Rifles were kept in a Steel reinforced concrete room with a solid steel door, but the bolts, except when someone was in the Armory and was about to issue firearms, were kept elsewhere.
Now, my old First Sargent talked about his old armory. The Feds had fits with it, it did not meet modern requirements for storage of weapons, it had 12-16 feet of solid oak walls as opposed to the Steel Reinforced Concrete walls required by the Feds today. The Federal inspectors would object, my First Sargent would appeal and on review it was determined the solid oak walls were harder to break down then would be a Steel Reinforced concrete wall. i.e. the solid oak walls were better then a what the Federal Government required.
Back to trigger locks. The better option is to remove the bolts, which is NOT hard on most firearms. The major exception would be revolvers and single shot weapons (Which includes double barrel shotguns) these weapons do NOT have bolts and thus best stored broken down (On most shotguns I have owned, single shots and double barreled, it was easy to break down the weapon into two parts). I have no knowledge on revolvers, the only pistol I have ever used was a M1911 automatic which had a bolt, thus in the case of Revolvers it may be harder to break them down, but removing the cylinder would be more effective then installing a trigger lock.
Sorry, I just can NOT see the advantages of a Trigger lock, given that all of them work depending on some metal near or in direct contact with the trigger. I was always taught to treat all weapons as if loaded, and thus a trigger lock can NEVER be installed, for all weapons are to be treated as loaded and if a weapon is loaded trigger locks are unsafe.
When I was a Child, I could find my father's guns, but never the bolts and never the ammunition. Bolts and Ammunition can be hidden and stored in places where a child can not search. Rifles and Shotguns are much larger and thus harder to hide from Children. I also knew that if my parents found me with the rifles and shotguns I would be punished (Slowed me down a little bit, but not much). The fact that I (as a child) could NOT find the bolts and the ammunition was the key to safely storing weapons.
Trigger locks encourage unsafe storage of weapons. i.e. weapons stored with bolts or in one piece. That is my biggest problem with Trigger locks along with the fact that ALL weapons are to be treated as loaded and Trigger Locks are NEVER To go on a LOADED weapon. Trigger locks thus permit people to think of weapons as unloaded, a concept I reject as unsafe.
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