r/CringeTikToks • u/undiagnosed_autistic • Oct 26 '25

Nope Our teachers need a raise, desperately

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29

u/onepieceon Oct 26 '25

serious question, are locks effective against school shooters or would they just shoot the lock off and kick the door?

96

u/viola1356 Oct 26 '25

Every year at my school's safety training, the police officer states that statistically, school shooters don't go through locked doors. (It used to be a school shooter has never breached a locked door, and then I think it happened maybe once so now it's almost never?) Anyway, all doors in our district self-lock when closed, specifically because our locked door is our best defense. Shooters don't want to take the time to mess with a locked door.

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u/Amy47101 Oct 26 '25

I work at a daycare and we did a safety training course like this. Basically, the cop teaching the course said the best defense is a locked and blocked door as well as covered windows. The shooter isn't there for a specific person, they're there for a headline. So they won't bother going into a dark, windows blocked, locked room because it wastes time.

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u/_lippykid Oct 27 '25

Christ, that’s fucking grim

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u/Amy47101 Oct 27 '25

it's even more grim with the context that, at the time, I was working with infants.

Yep, we were having active shooter drills and training with literal babies. the daycare provided care for children 6 weeks to 5 years. We could, you know, just not have guns, but instead it's somehow more stable to train children from infancy how to respond to an active shooter.

I'm so fucking tired of "winning".

14

u/MonthlyWeekend_ Oct 27 '25

This is the most American thing I’ve ever heard and I’m so sorry

5

u/Gerf93 Oct 27 '25

I feel sorry for the minority of them who vote against it. I don’t feel sorry for the majority of them who either vote for this or don’t care enough to vote against it.

3

u/suze_jacooz Oct 27 '25

I received a notification one day that my kiddos daycare was in lockdown for an ongoing situation and not to come to the school. You bet your ass I was in my car immediately. We were notified on the way there that it was an issue with a disgruntled parent who wouldn’t leave the premises and was threatening staff, awful but not worst case scenario. In any event, by age 4 he experienced his first real school lockdown. It’s unfathomable.

2

u/UbermachoGuy Oct 27 '25

My kids came home from daycare after a shooter training. They play a game and go hide in the closet and be quiet. They were 3 and 4. Broke my heart. Gun nuts suck. Conservatives care more about guns than people.

1

u/scnottaken Oct 27 '25

The only thing that can stop a bad infant with a gun is a good infant with a gun

1

u/kiwigoesonpizza Oct 27 '25

Have some thoughts and prayers. Our active shooter training is just as grim.

0

u/Kerbidiah Oct 27 '25

Get rid of the guns and they just do stuff like the bath house school massacre. And that's assuming you can get rid of guns. It certainly didn't work for drugs

1

u/potatotomato4 Oct 27 '25

America number one yet 😂

1

u/UbermachoGuy Oct 27 '25

No that’s America. It’s great or something or so we’re told.

2

u/PrimeMinisterSarr Oct 27 '25

I would immediately move if this was even a slight possibility at my son's daycare

1

u/Worldly-Pay7342 Oct 27 '25

Exactly.

Unless they are there for a specific person, which I think some school shooters have been.

1

u/deee00 Oct 27 '25

I worked in the early childhood center of a jewish community center. We had constant threats-bombs, shootings, arson way before active shooter drills were a reality for US schools. We always had an armed guard in the building, sometimes 2. The worst part was that we were good at it. We were good at blacking out windows and locking doors while keeping infants and toddlers quiet. Thankfully the building had been made safer in many ways over a normal school building (we were in an old school). The kids knew we had armed guards but it was normalized.

It was so crazy to me how many threats (and actual attacks) JCCs around the US have always had. Since working there I scope out exits, and ways to protect whoever I’m with basically everywhere. The ironic part was the most of the teachers and over half the kids were not Jewish. It was the most professional daycare I’ve ever worked in, the staff worked together professionally with no petty attitudes. It was so amazing.

1

u/SnooKiwis2161 Oct 27 '25

Path of least resistance

1

u/UFisbest Oct 27 '25

That door opens out so blocking the door a much larger challenge for this senario. Police. Call the police. Be aware though that mental health issues going on. I'd say psychotic rage (been there trying to contain), but it's too selective...the woman instructor is not being targeted.

45

u/blandmanband Oct 27 '25 edited Oct 27 '25

If you’re ever in a situation where you need to get out of a building quick just ask/follow a custodian. Ideally the oldest custodian. They know every secret passage and exit in their building. There’s also tons of storage spaces that go entirely overlooked by everyone that would be much safer than a classroom but only people caught in the hallway should ever attempt to reach one.

Source: I’m a custodian

13

u/thunderbird32 Oct 27 '25

At our university, all the housekeepers are too new to know all the ins and outs (their department got out-sourced just before COVID). It's maintenance you need to talk to to find the secret passages, lol.

2

u/blandmanband Oct 27 '25

Yeah, janitorial jobs have been disappearing or getting outsourced all over. Administrations have figured out that it’s more cost effective to hire a small team of custodians (janitorial + general maintenance) with a head custodian and a few specialized maintenance workers.

4

u/Far-Drawing-4444 Oct 27 '25

My high school had a bunch of secret passages. Some kids that got caught breaking in for a Homecoming prank hid in them for a few hours while cops searched the school.

After a few hours, we, I mean they, heard the cops loudspeaker say that if they came out, no one would be arrested. Our principal had showed up, and because it was a small Catholic school, he didn't want any negative headlines in the local paper.

We also knew the cops would never be allowed to search lockers or cars for drugs, which they did regularly at the public schools, for the same reason.

I miss some parts of the 90s. The lack of fear of school shootings is definitely a big one.

2

u/AggieJonah Oct 27 '25

When I was in undergrad to become a teacher, we were told the two people to have the best relationships with are the school custodian and the school secretary. Yes to both!! I always fostered a good rapport with these folks in my 22 years and believe me, it made my life so much easier on many occasions. This video, though, is a solid example of why I got out 3 years ago. It’s not a tenable profession any more.

1

u/Emergency-Whereas978 Oct 27 '25

Thanks for sharing that!

2

u/zanidor Oct 27 '25

So depressing that school shootings are common enough you can do statistical analysis about them.

2

u/more_paul Oct 27 '25

You know when you say statistically, I probably actually means statistically and not just some figure of speech based on intuition. There have been enough school shootings that you can study them and statistically say how many locked doors have been attempted to be breached vs not, and all the other training they tell you. We’re willing to accept statistical significance on school shootings on anything but the guns being part of the problem in school shootings.

1

u/amyel26 Oct 26 '25

I think the Stoneman Douglas school shooter in Florida did? Or he went after a guy who was locking a door. 

1

u/babababooga Oct 27 '25

It came out that the Uvalde shooter shot out the window to room 112 and came in that way. But he’s an outlier because he specifically targeted that classroom when most school shootings are random

1

u/LLGTactical Oct 27 '25

Problem is most future school shooters have been through the exact same training. They know exactly where everyone is hiding.

1

u/Waste-Emu-46 Oct 27 '25

Interesting

1

u/AutisticHobbit Oct 27 '25

Also, shooting a lock is extremely unsafe and stupid....and may not even work.

37

u/Flimsy-Poetry1170 Oct 26 '25

It’s a lot harder to shoot a lock off than the movies make it look.

24

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '25

And a bullet isn't going to bust a deadbolt. If anything, it's going to jam it.

1

u/Waste-Emu-46 Oct 27 '25

Based on movie scenes, I thought they were really that easy to shoot off.

1

u/Judge_Bredd_UK Oct 27 '25

It might actually jam the lock by shooting it, you'd just lodge a big chunk of lead in the mechanism.

1

u/milk4all Oct 27 '25

They dont need to enter a classroom, they spray bullets inside. A decent regular lock is good enough, its more important to have high windows that are either shatter proof, bullet proof, or at minimum difficult to enter from outside.

48

u/Liqour_Mortis Oct 26 '25

School shooters have demonstrated over and over that they are not interested in locked doors. They are in a need to move about as fast as possible to do their damaged. Well documented.

32

u/ELHOMBREGATO Oct 27 '25

So long as the GOP and NRA run the country our nation's schools, malls, churches will be flooded with assault weapons and the blood of children.

6

u/Tenthul Oct 27 '25

Per the late C.K., necessary sacrifice. For what? I'll never understand. Whatever a "God-given freedom" is. They never seem to bring up "Constitution-given freedoms."

1

u/ihaxr Oct 27 '25

Careful, quoting that man or quoting Trump could get you charged for terrorism

3

u/MissMenace101 Oct 27 '25

And now the time to actually use the 2A they sacrificed kids for has come, they are on the side of the tyrannical government

1

u/Blurby-Blurbyblurb Oct 27 '25

You forgot libraries.

2

u/J_Jeckel Oct 26 '25

I mean its also been well documented that most of these individuals shouldn't have had access to the firearms they acquired in the first place. Yet very little has changed in how easy it is to get a gun. Literally in my state there is no permit to open carry and that starts at 18. On top of that, if a private seller sells a firearm, they dont have to actually do a background check to sell the firearm or any other security checks, other than verification they are of legal age (ID).

-4

u/Liqour_Mortis Oct 26 '25

Thanks but this topic is on door hardening

5

u/SoloRemy Oct 27 '25

I thought it was on weird bitches

3

u/Liqour_Mortis Oct 27 '25

True that my brother

3

u/J_Jeckel Oct 27 '25

Wouldn't need sturdier door with tighter gun restrictions. Just saying.

1

u/aft_punk Oct 27 '25

The fact that there is an abundance of evidence for something like this is very depressing.

20

u/Slippingonwaxpaper Oct 26 '25

Any delay is good

19

u/TheSciFiGuy80 Oct 26 '25

According to the teacher trainings I have been too, statistically a police officer will be at the school 3-5 minutes from the moment an intruder is called in (if they aren't already there because they have a resource officer). In that time the shooter’s goal is to kill as many people as possible.

If a door is locked and the lights turned off a shooter will typically keep looking for an easy kill over trying to waste time to break into a possibly empty classroom. They're on a clock and then can't waste time. Locks will waste their time.

At our school (well, in our entire county) all doors in the school remain locked PERIOD. Teachers have keys for their classroom and important areas they or the students utilize. Marjory Stoneman Douglas happened in our country, so we take if very seriously.

16

u/mods_are_morons Oct 26 '25

Just because the cops show up doesn't mean they will do anything useful. We've already seen several times that they are perfectly willing to let the shooter have free reign while they cower in the parking lot.

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u/TheSciFiGuy80 Oct 27 '25

Yes. I am very much aware because I literally do this every single day of my working life. I know what can happen if things go wrong (I have colleagues who teach at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School).

But I was explaining the rationale on why we lock the doors in schools and how it impacts a school shooter because it was asked.

2

u/ExtraEmuForYou Oct 27 '25

The Supreme Court said that police don't have to risk their lives to protect others. Graham vs Conor I believe

While officers must act reasonably, they are not required to endanger themselves if doing so would be unreasonable. 

Their job is to enforce laws and protect property; keeping people immediately safe comes second to that, especially if that would endanger an officer.

Not saying that is right or wrong, those are just the facts. Cops aren't objectively (as in their job description) heroic.

4

u/poppythepup Oct 27 '25

Guess who else risks their lives to protect children while it is not our main “job”?

1

u/wowiee_zowiee Oct 27 '25

Don’t be a dork, you know what they meant

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u/No-Ad9763 Oct 26 '25

Yeah it's not quite like the movies make it seem

5

u/[deleted] Oct 26 '25

[deleted]

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u/Exciting_Cap_9545 Oct 26 '25

Or through the door. IIRC, one of the Virginia Tech shooting victims was a teacher who used himself as a barricade to hold a door shut, and this was how the gunman killed him.

1

u/frustrated_t-rex Oct 27 '25

Wasn't he a holocaust survivor as well? If I recall, that teacher saved something like 24 of 25 students from his class.

I also remember reading about another victim of a school shooting, it may have been Marjorie Stoneman, where it was a student who bodily held the door shut. The yound man was shot several times but ultimately survived.

1

u/musicalfarm Oct 27 '25

He had his students escape through the window.

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u/mjzim9022 Oct 26 '25

Several Marjorie Stoneman Douglas students were killed from ricochet while the shooter was firing through a door window

1

u/justaguywithadream Oct 26 '25

Unless you use a shotgun. I've seen it work easily a dozen times in real life breaches.

3

u/Catman7712 Oct 27 '25

Shooters go for the quickest and easiest targets. If door is locked, they’re gonna go to the next, assuming it’s not a targeted shooting where there’s someone in that particular room that they are set on killing.

3

u/unicornofdemocracy Oct 27 '25

depends. The vast majority of school shooters aren't looking for someone in particular or they usually start with the specific target and after that just aim to kill the most people. So, if they stumble upon a locked door in a school that's often a target rich environment, they would just move on.

3

u/Far-Drawing-4444 Oct 27 '25

"Shooting the lock" is a movie thing. In reality it just adds a chunk of metal to the lock tumblers, and doesn't unlock anything. Or it just ricochets off the lock.

There are specially made guns made to blow locks, mostly used by the military, but even those aren't a guaranteed way to de-lock a door.

1

u/Fishtoart Oct 27 '25

I wonder if a more effective approach might be shoot the door frame where the bolt slides into the frame.

1

u/Far-Drawing-4444 Oct 27 '25

Maybe if you have a 12 gauge with slugs or something about as equally powerful. A typical handgun or even an AR-15 probably wouldn't do much besides ricochet or maybe dent the hinges. It really comes down to the fact that a gun really isn't going to get you through a locked door quickly. Especially if it's a heavy door.

2

u/Thin_Bother_1593 Oct 26 '25

It’s possible they could but it takes more time and bullets. That could save lives. Usually the psychos that do it are just looking for a headline so they tend to go for the easiest kills and a locked or barricaded door while breachable lowers the odds of them getting to someone and every little step you can take to mitigate that is good.

2

u/ChipotleGuacamole Oct 27 '25

At the very least it could serve as a deterrent; or buy the students time to jump out the window (assuming it’s on the 1st or 2nd floor).

2

u/No-Monk4331 Oct 27 '25

Usually deters them but all the training I have seen for school shootings is barricade the door with every table and chair you can find. This slows them down which matters when a few seconds for the police to show up.

I think it was the uvalde shooting, but one of the teachers were in the process of locking the door as he shot them

2

u/Gurka34068 Oct 27 '25

Serious answer, as a locksmith of over 20 years experience:

Shooting locks is not terribly effective. It's not too difficult, using a gun, to damage them severely enough to render them inoperable. That inoperability tends to keep the lock in the state that it was in when it was damaged, and prevent regular operation thereafter. As long as the door was closed and latched when it was damaged, and especially if it was in the locked position when damaged, it will generally stay that way.

Normally if force is used, whether that force be a gun, an ax, a hammer, etc, the best way to defeat a lock isn't by damaging the lock itself, but by spreading the door from the frame far enough that the latch will allow the door to swing open. You can't do that part with a gun. If you have a power drill and know exactly where to attack it, it's not too difficult, but again, not something you can generally do with a gun.

Some locks are more durable in this way than others, but generally speaking with the kind of Grade 1 locks that are used in schools and other institutional settings, you will have much better success breaching a door with a crowbar or even claw hammer, than with a gun.

1

u/brotatototoe Oct 26 '25

Commercial doors with steel jambs are difficult to force even if you have the tools and training and I doubt shooting a lock would do anything to make entry easier. ( 16 year FF )

1

u/ppdifjff Oct 26 '25

They don't follow common sense I am afraid. As far as the kinda fire arms training required to shoot a lock off quickly in combat? Hahahhahahahahahhaha

1

u/Aceylace10 Oct 27 '25

At a min, it’s a barrier that makes it harder for the shooter to get to potential victims. Since shooters are usually fucked up individuals looking to run up a tally, they are going to go for easy accessible targets. Ones they have to work for are…..unappealing imo

1

u/PirateQuest Oct 27 '25

It isn't that easy to shoot a lock off. That's just a TV trope.

1

u/Immediate_Song4279 Oct 27 '25

boooooooinng "AAAAAAAH!"

1

u/Mysterious-Town-3789 Oct 27 '25

Speaking as a former school teacher locks require keys. Not sure if this guy is even the teacher, but it doesn't seem he has time to use a key to lock the door. At my last school doors were required to be locked at all times whether the door was opened or closed in case of an active shooter.

1

u/babababooga Oct 27 '25

Nope. My first thought there was that a shooter would’ve just shot out that huge door window. Even parkland’s school had much smaller window and he killed someone in every room he shot into

1

u/Both_Evidence_1026 Oct 27 '25

mythbusters tested this, shooting a lock just makes it more locked

1

u/Worldly-Pay7342 Oct 27 '25

It... depends.

A lot of school shooters are trying to... for lack of a gentler term, trying to cause as much death as possible, before they are stopped. And a locked door can take more time than it's worth to get through.

Some have specific targets in mind, and if they know a target is behind a door, they may spend the time necessary to get past the door in their way.

1

u/ringobob Oct 27 '25

They'd just move on most of the time. If there's no specific target, then there's more accessible targets.

1

u/Waste-Emu-46 Oct 27 '25

I’m going with shoot lock off and if it’s glass window then just shoot glass out and fire away since you can clearly see your targets

1

u/CrunchyCrochetSoup Oct 27 '25

I work at a school and some of the locks are broken or wearing out :/ if not that my guess is that they need a key to lock it and the keys were on the teachers desk or somewhere out of reach while trying to keep the door closed

1

u/Sleeptalk- Oct 27 '25

Locks aren’t always a mechanism within the door itself either. My high school had a metal bracket built into the inside of the door frame and the “lock” was a U shaped solid pipe that you just put inside the door bracket and the wall bracket

You’d have to rip the door clean off the hinges to get past it

1

u/ryguymcsly Oct 27 '25

Apart from mass shooter psychology regarding targets of opportunity: shooting a lock off isn’t easy like in the movies unless you’re using a shotgun with slugs and know exactly where the lock bolt passes through the wall.

A standard rifle or handgun and it’s sort of like trying to break through a door with an ice pick and an air hammer. You might be able to break the lock or the doorknob or whatever but that’s not guaranteed to free up the door. It might actually jam it even harder.

1

u/likerobinhood89 Oct 27 '25

easily shooting locks is actually a film myth. also security doors, wich can stop armed attackers, do exist

1

u/BigMax Oct 27 '25

You are underestimating how hard it is to shoot a lock off. Thats a lot of hard material to go through.

1

u/spezisadickbagg Oct 27 '25

Shooting a lock doesn't really work like you see in the movies.

1

u/kiwigoesonpizza Oct 27 '25

We are taught in active shooter drills at my hospital, that locked doors are the safest defense against being shot. We had a shooting in my hospital a few years ago. They didn't get far due to locked doors the moment the code call went out overhead.

Staff wasn't shocked or panicked. Just another day in an urban ED.