When your children are at home with you, do you keep your doors locked?

[FarCenter]

Ours always were.

If so, shouldn't the doors be locked at their schools, with access granted only to those with a need to be there?

[bearsfootball516]

1. Most schools are like that, nowadays.

Doors are locked during the day, and to get in, you have to press the intercom button and someone in the main office can see you on a camera and unlocks the door.

[JenniferJuniper]

2. My kids' school is always locked,

no metal detectors but you need a pass to get in.

Wouldn't do much for the kids outside at the track, tennis courts, fields, etc. though

[pnwmom]

3. Not if they were playing in the backyard -- that would be locking them out. n/t

[handmade34]

4. I am so dismayed....

I hate the direction we have taken... I have never locked my door... but I also live in a rural area...

when I worked at the school nearby, all was very lax- these days all must go through the front office

for me, this is what losing our freedom looks like

[FarCenter]

7. I grew up on a farm, and we didn't even have keys

But my wife is from a city, and our house has always been locked, even though it is in a pretty safe area. I'm thinking of getting some video cameras though.

[handmade34]

18. cameras are a good idea

but I need them for the family of bears that frequent my yard

[FarCenter]

20. Are you sure a bear can't turn a doorknob?

I'm assuming you don't have lever-type door handles?

[handmade34]

22. ...

(the bears cannot turn my knobs and as of yet no random shooters in my yard)

https://www.sevendaysvt.com/vermont/trouble-bruin-vermonters-are-reporting-more-problems-with-bears/Content?oid=7356874

...one of the massive mammals burst through a screen window and ransacked an elderly couple's kitchen — and then tried to repeat the snack-attack on four subsequent nights...

[MontanaMama]

26. Lol!

We have cameras for bears and other critters that wander through our yard too. And, to make sure what UPS leaves at my door stays at my door.

[hunter]

24. I guess you wouldn't be happy in my world...

... chasing off the kids spray painting gang graffiti on my back wall, etc. We live in one of our city's nicer neighborhoods. We didn't used to. Our old house, the one we lived in when our kids were small, had bullet holes in it, patched over by our landlord who wasn't a competent handyman so he couldn't make them invisible. You could still trace the path of one bullet that went through the front wall and into the back wall of the living room. My kids and I and any other kids who happened to be with us would play on the floor of the back bedroom whenever things were tense and I heard gunfire. 99% or more of the time it wasn't like that, no different than any other neighborhood.

The roughest job I ever had was big urban school science teacher, in a school with lots of problems. I left that. Every week brought a few fresh horrors, some still recurring in my nightmares. The only teachers who survive in that environment are saints and people who build impenetrable walls around their hearts. I couldn't do either.

I grew up in a community that was Ivory Soap 99 44/100 white, with one of the lowest crime rates in the country. My parents landed there because that's where the work was. As artists with day jobs they couldn't be picky. They fled soon after my dad retired. Nevertheless the high school was a Lord of the Flies experience for me, I was called queerbait and beaten regularly, so I quit high school for college, one of the better decisions I've made in my life. Most of my life now I've been a minority white guy. But we white guys still got our privileges here in the U.S.A. wherever we live.

I've also got rural experiences growing up. My great grandmas were all authentic Wild West, wicked with guns and knives. I've got nieces who are accomplished horse women, and I'm not incompetent hunting or fishing, although the hunting doesn't appeal to me.

These damned altruism genes have got me and my wife in a lot of trouble over the years but there's no way in hell I'd ever have traded any it for some stale illusion of safety.

[underpants]

5. Yes and my daughter went to an open format elementary school

Evert classroom opened to the outside. Bathrooms were centralized between each 4 classrooms.

[hunter]

6. I'd rather melt down all the guns than lock my front door.

And what if I'm out front playing with my kids? With the other neighborhood kids?

We lived in some rougher neighborhoods when our kids were small, but we never chose to live in fear.

I think living in fear is a specialty of the gun fetishists.

[lunasun]

8. +1

[skylucy]

9. I taught in an elementary school for 38 years and have been retired for 3 years. It was

just during the last few years of teaching that my principal told me to lock my classroom door (to the hallway) while I was teaching. Our school had pretty massive main hallway doors that would swing closed and automatically lock if the "fire alarm" was triggered.

[anneboleyn]

14. They would trap students in a burning building by locking the doors? That makes zero sense to me

[skylucy]

25. The classrooms have doors that lead outside and doors that lead to the hallway.

Ya know....two doors.

[Skittles]

10. people who don't lock their doors

start locking their doors after the local axe murder

I'm in favor of not waiting for that

[Generic Brad]

11. We kept our screen door locked and the main door open

It occurs to me now that was no safer than having no door.

[anneboleyn]

12. I went to school in a big city, and we had locked gates and guards at every gate. It still doesnt

stop all of these shootings (shootings took place around the school rather than in it), and I don’t really see the analogy here. There is also of course the issue of maintaining safety standards such as for fires or in my state earthquakes and gas leaks when an evacuation needs to happen and happen quickly. Those locked entrances/exits had better be unlocked very quickly and with perfect execution in such circumstances.

[maxsolomon]

13. you should self-delete

the murderer kid WENT TO THAT SCHOOL. he knew how to get in. he knew to pull the fire alarm to get them to come out of the classrooms. he shot people THROUGH THE WALLS.

do you know what a classroom security lockset is? that's standard now.

[anneboleyn]

15. I agree with you honestly

[maxsolomon]

16. thanks.

I deleted the cursing.

[FarCenter]

21. THAT SCHOOL appears to not have had locked exterior doors

They had a perimeter fence around the campus and the fence had gates. But 20 minutes prior to the end of classes, the gates were opened so buses could enter and students leaving early could drive their cars out. Pretty shoddy security.

[maxsolomon]

30. It's not a prison

It's not a fort.

It's a school. I did not attend a hardened, "secured" school at any point in my life. And I went to school in a ghetto.

You are accepting the NRAs framing and I fundamentally reject it.

[lostnfound]

17. Suburb, and no.... people in my neighborhood generally dont.

One day a teacher at the school mentioned locking his front door to go out for a run...and the kids in his junior high class were laughing about it, “who locks their doors?”

But I live in Mayberry / Wonder Years / Truman Show.

[kwassa]

19. Our massive school system has a card key system.

All exterior doors are locked after the kids enter schools. Outsiders are admitted later via a computer camera system. Employees have card keys. Roughly 200 schools in the system. 150,000 students.

There are also lockdown drills.

DC suburbs, affluent area, but also the area where the DC sniper was active.

[Ilsa]

23. Our elementary and middle school buildings are locked and

Very secure. A resource officer sits at the locked point of entry.

The high schools are less secure, sadly, but security is getting more beefed up every year.

[jberryhill]

27. When mine were young I wanted them to be able to escape a fire

Depending on the age of the children involved, impeding their ability to exit in an emergency is a much greater risk than an intruder.

[FarCenter]

28. Exit doors should always open from the inside, even when locked

Most key-in-knob locks work that way. I wouldn't used a keyed on the inside deadbolt.

[Phentex]

29. No. Maybe I should have. The schools were different...

doors were locked and you had to be buzzed in. I always felt the elementary school principal was paranoid. Had cameras everywhere and ran a tight ship. I felt like the kids were safe though. I was very involved at the high school and always signed in and wore a badge. I never minded when I was stopped by anyone because they should be concerned when a non employee is in the building.

At home I worried more about the boys falling off the swing set and breaking an arm. One look at our house and I think any burglar would pass it up for something more appealing. And we've always had dogs. The two I have now are babies but look and sound ferocious. (Rottweiler mix). The mailman had to be escorted to my door by a neighbor once because he was concerned.

I'm not lackadaisical and take precaution but I'm not paranoid either.