Gun lock with resettable combination

A method for locking a gun having a firing mechanism, comprising the steps of:

• providing a lock fastened to a portion of the firearm and comprising engagement structure for engaging at least a portion of the firing mechanism and having a first position preventing operation of the firearm and having a second position permitting operation of the firearm, the gun lock being a combination lock, the combination lock comprising:
• a plurality of rotatable ratchet wheels, each ratchet wheel having a biasing member associated therewith for urging the ratchet wheel to an initial position;
• a combination disk engaged to and rotatable with an associated ratchet wheel, each combination disk being disengageable from the associated ratchet wheel;
• a movable key carrier comprising a plurality of keys and each combination disk comprising an associated key-way, the keys being moveable into the key-ways upon the movement of the ratchet wheels and associated combination disk to an unlocking position wherein the key-ways are aligned with the associated keys, the engagement structure being attached to the key carrier, and thereby moving to the second position permitting operation of the firearm;
• a push button combination-entering member associated with each ratchet wheel, and indexing pawls operably connected to the push buttons, operation of the push button combination-entering member causing the corresponding indexing pawl to engage the corresponding ratchet wheel to cause the ratchet wheel to rotate a predetermined angular distance with each operation of the associated push button combination-entering member;
• retaining pawls associated with and engaged to the ratchet wheels for retaining the ratchet wheel against the bias of the biasing member;
• a reset button, movement of the reset button moving the keys out of the key-ways and the retaining pawls out of contact with the ratchet wheels to permit rotation of the combination disks and the associated ratchet wheels;
• a first combination-changing member operable to disengage the combination disks from the associated ratchet wheels to permit independent movement of the combination disks and the associated ratchet wheels, and thereby relative movement of the key-way of the combination disk relative to the initial position of the associated ratchet wheel, and also operable to reengage the combination disks with the associated ratchet wheels;
• and,
• a second combination-changing member operable to move the retaining pawls out of and into contact with the ratchet wheels while the keys remain in the associated key-ways, whereby the ratchet wheels can be returned to the initial position and the combination disks will be maintained in the initial position so as to permit the entering of a new combination by pushing each push button a number of times corresponding to the new combination, and upon reengagement of the combination disks with the associated ratchet wheels thereby changing the combination of operations of the push button combination-entering members required to align the key-ways of the associated combination disks and ratchet wheels with the keys of the movable key carrier to unlock the lock and operate the firearm;
• operating the combination lock to lock and unlock the gun using a first combination for the combination lock;
• and,
• changing the combination required to lock and unlock the combination lock.