[FPrice]

"But when my girlfriend and her two kids moved in, suddenly the rules changed. Suddenly I had a curious 7-year-old boy and a precocious 10-year-old girl in the house, all the time. Including when I'm not there."

Sounds like you found a good solution, but I am curious about one thing. Did you discuss at all your firearms situation with your gf before she moved in? Having experience with a VERY similar situation I am curious if she knew that you had loaded firearms and what her reaction(s) was/were. Having curious and precocious children suddenly appear and live in your house without planning and discussing how to handle the issue of access to firearms and how to train the children to not touch is an important issue.

Please don't get me wrong, I think your solution has a lot of merit, especially for long-term storage and security. I am just curious if you looked at and addressed the other considerations