Should you put your firearms list in an app? A skeptic's checklist

Should you put your firearms list in an app?

Honest answer: maybe. Probably not most of them.

I built Shooting Log Pro precisely because most existing options didn’t pass my own checklist. So I’m including SLP in the checklist below — and I’ll tell you transparently how it scores against each item.

This is the article to read before signing up for any firearms tracking app, including this one.

The checklist

Ten questions. Ask each one of any app you’re considering.

1. Where is the data hosted?

Country, region, hosting provider. “The cloud” isn’t an answer. The right answer is something specific: “AWS us-east-1,” “DigitalOcean NYC3,” “Hetzner Falkenstein.” If the company can’t tell you concretely, that’s the answer.

2. Does the app run third-party analytics on user data?

Google Analytics, Mixpanel, Segment, Amplitude, Heap, anything similar — pointed at user records or behaviors involving user data. Not just “do you use Google Analytics on the marketing site” (almost everyone does), but specifically: do third-party tools see your firearms entries, session entries, or behavior inside the app? The right answer for a firearms-tracking tool is no.

3. Are user records sent to AI services?

OpenAI, Anthropic, AWS Bedrock, Google Vertex, anything similar. For “smart suggestions,” indexing, classification, search, anything. Many apps now route data through these services without prominent disclosure. The right answer for firearms data is no.

4. Are there ad networks running on user data?

Facebook Pixel, Google Ads conversion data, retargeting tags, audience-building integrations. The right answer is no.

5. Can you hard-delete your account?

Real deletion, not soft-deletion into a 90-day “we still have it” bucket. Ask whether the deletion request actually wipes the data from production databases and backups within a stated timeframe.

6. Can you export your data, anytime, in a usable format?

CSV, JSON, or another format you can open without their tool. Self-service, not a support ticket. No waiting period. If the answer is “you’d have to email us and we’ll see,” your data is being held hostage.

7. Who runs the company?

Indie founder? Small bootstrapped team? VC-backed? Public company? Subsidiary of something larger? Each of these has different incentive structures and different time horizons for what they’ll do with your data. None of them is automatically wrong, but you should know which one you’re dealing with.

8. What happens if they get acquired or shut down?

Specifically: do you get advance notice? Can you export through the transition? Is there a written commitment that your data isn’t sold as part of the deal? “We’ll figure it out if it happens” is not an answer.

9. Are any of these answers committed in writing?

A privacy policy. A continuity commitment. A terms of service section that says what they will and will not do. Verbal “we wouldn’t do that” assurances are worth what you paid for them. Written commitments are a higher bar, and they’re enforceable in ways verbal claims aren’t.

10. How do you verify any of this?

Three forms of verification:

• Reading the privacy policy and matching it against marketing claims.
• Opening the network tab in your browser when using the app, and seeing where requests actually go.
• Asking the company directly and getting an answer that doesn’t dodge the specifics.

If marketing claims privacy and the network tab tells a different story, the network tab is right.

How Shooting Log Pro scores

Transparently, item by item:

1. Where hosted: US, on DigitalOcean.
2. Third-party analytics on user data: None. No Google Analytics, Mixpanel, or similar pointed at user records.
3. AI services: None. Your data is not sent to OpenAI, Anthropic, or any other AI provider.
4. Ad networks: None.
5. Hard delete: Yes. Account deletion wipes user data from production. No soft-delete graveyard.
6. Export: Yes, full CSV export, anytime, self-service. Sessions, firearms, barrels, locations.
7. Who runs it: One person — me, Rob Bazinet, on the About page with a name, photo, and email. Indie. Bootstrapped. No outside investors.
8. Acquisition / shutdown: Written continuity commitment. 60 days of notice, full export available the entire time, hard delete at shutdown if you don’t export, data never sold as part of any deal.
9. In writing: Yes. The above is in What I do — and don’t do — with your firearms data and on the privacy page.
10. How to verify: Read the privacy article. Open the network tab on a free trial. Email me at rob@shootinglogpro.com.

This isn’t a brag. It’s a baseline that I built the product to clear. If another tool clears the same baseline and fits you better in other ways, use that one.

Why I’m including my own product in the checklist

Because the question is real, and the answer matters. Asking “does this app pass the privacy bar?” is something the audience for any firearms tracking tool should be doing — and “trust the founder, he seems nice” is not the right answer for any tool, including mine.

If a public checklist of objective criteria is the standard, I want SLP measured by it. So I’m publishing the checklist and the answers.

Pick the answer that fits your threat model

If your threat model is loose — your firearms list is in a few places already, you mostly want round counts handled — many tools will work for you, and the privacy items above may not be load-bearing.

If your threat model is strict — you do not want your firearms data in third-party clouds, you do not want it in any AI vendor’s training pipeline, you want a written commitment about what happens if the company changes hands — the answer set narrows fast. I built Shooting Log Pro for the strict-threat-model audience, because that’s the audience I’m part of.

The 14-day trial is the next step if the answers above match what you need. No credit card to start. The privacy posture is in What I do — and don’t do — with your firearms data. The product is in your hands within two minutes of signing up.

If a different tool fits your threat model better, use that one. The point of this article wasn’t to sell you on Shooting Log Pro. It was to give you the questions to ask of any tool — including this one — before trusting it with your firearms list.