Video Shows How To Use A Chair To Bar Classroom Doors Against Shooters

A video has gone viral across Twitter for showing an easy method to secure classroom doors from the inside in the wake of the Uvalde shooting and continuing lack of action by those in power to stop a uniquely American problem. 

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The footage shows a man demonstrating how to use the chair often seen in U.S. public schools to quickly and easily secure the door by wedging it into the door handle, leaving it practically immovable.

Posted by Twitter user RobbBeaux, the video has been retweeted more than 16,000 times and provides a window into the desperation for solutions to school shootings after a gunman killed 22 at an elementary school in Texas last week.

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The video's responses reflect arguments between those advocating school "hardening" measures and others calling for stricter gun laws.

"It sucks I even have to share this," RobbBeaux wrote in the tweet. "But just in case."

The man in the video recommends using some visual indicator, such as glitter or something else easy to spot, in order to immediately recognize which leg of the chair should go in the door handle. It should then be left next to the door, either as a “timeout” spot or a support for a potted plant or any other reason you could think of to always have that chair by the door.

When needed, you can then grab the chair, slip the back leg between the handle and the door with the chair back facing away from the door’s center, then twist the chair so that the back is sticking out across the wall, making it very difficult to open the door from the outside. It’s hard to even tell that someone from the outside of the classroom is trying to open the door after the demonstrator knocks because it’s secured so well that nothing appears to move at all.

“He’s yanking on it,” the demonstrator has to confirm. “If anybody wants to go out and try to open it, you can, but this is as solid as possible, and it’s a pretty good trick. He’s trying to, this door isn’t even moving.”

Last week's deadly school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, has reopened debates about school safety. Republicans and gun rights advocates have argued that increased security and armed teachers at schools will stop shootings. Democrats, gun control advocates and security experts, however, have called the approach impractical, saying schools would resemble prisons and other high-security environments.

Calls to pass gun control legislation following the 2012 Sandy Hook school shooting have stalled in Congress. Since then, schools have come up with plans and training for how students and teachers should react to shootings. Both the Department of Homeland Security and the FBI have issued guides for how companies and schools can prepare for shooters. Both advise employees and students to flee shooters, hide from them using a locked door (if possible), and fight as a last resort.

After the tragic event at Uvalde, the US Department of Justice has launched an investigation into police response during the shooting following the admission from law enforcement officials of critical errors in their response, including an hour-long delay before confronting the gunman on 24 May even as children inside the school made desperate calls to 911.

Over the weekend, Mr Biden said he is “pretty motivated” to enact new gun safety laws but said he could not “dictate” gun policy through executive action as it was “hard to say” if the GOP would accept any of the proposals that have been floated in the last week.

Commenters, including people who work in public education and have to sit through demonstrations like this, have noted that this kind of thing is very effective against mass shooters because they tend to move on quickly if a door seems difficult to penetrate. The hope would be that all school doors would have secure and working locks on the inside, but considering the way this country funds its schools, it’s not surprising that teachers need backup plans.