To clarify, I do not carry lock picks with me, so doing is of doubtful legality and unlikely to be of any lawful use whilst times are normal.

I do however have such items stored away for use in any serious long term emergency.
I only mentioned this as an example of something that I would not loan out.

I'm reluctant to say any particular tool can only be used for bad. I figure if a bad guy has certain tools, then at least some good guys should have the same tools. (That's an uncomfortable reality of this world.) At a minimum, being an expert on breaking-and-entering equipment naturally makes the person an expert on how to counteract such equipment. The first step to being such an expert is to own or have access to the breaking-and-entering equipment.

Anyway, I can imagine at least one other acceptable use for breaking-and-entering equipment. Imagine somebody stole your stuff and put it inside a locked building on their property. You went through all the legal channels to try to get your stuff back. (Or if it's TEOTWAWKI, there are no institutional legal channels available.) In such a situation, I'd rather use breaking-and-entering equipment than use brute force.

Another use is if you or a neighbor no longer has keys to the particular lock for whatever reason (key is lost, stolen, damaged, etc.). Brute force may cause more damage or commotion than you're willing to allow.

Further, a shotgun or crowbar is still breaking-and-entering equipment. It just falsely puts you on a moral high ground, and you may not be using the best tool on top of that. Always try to use the best tool.

(By the way, I don't own any equipment that is specifically for breaking-and-entering.)

Lockpicks are lighter, smaller, and make less noise. With that said if I could only carry a crowbar or a set of picks, I would choose the crowbar. Ditto shotgun although for other reasons.



In one case, my key to a padlock was lost (for good) and it was much quicker and easier to pick the lock than to cut it. In another, friends bought some property upon which was a trailer where the key was lost; I was able to quickly and non-destructively open it for them. In neither case was there the least bit of ambiguity as to the propriety or legality of my actions. These are certainly edge cases, and at least for the trailer a locksmith could have been paid to open it.

My interest in lockpicking is as a hobbyist; I am not a professional nor a survivalist. I seriously doubt I would ever be in a TEOTWAWKI situation, much less one where lockpicks would be useful. I also agree that in almost all cases if you don't have the key or the person with the key, you shouldn't pick the lock.

Would I spend the time and effort to learn how to pick locks for prepping purposes? No. Since I spent the time and effort to learn how for other reasons, do I have them? Yes.