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Shoot Out the Lock: Difference between revisions
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http://www.theboxotruth.com/docs/bot5.htm
Not to be confused with [[Thrown Out the Airlock|getting shot out of an airlock.]]
{{examples}}
== [[Anime]] and [[Manga]] ==
* Gets played with in the first episode of ''[[Gosick]]''. We see a maid shooting at a locked door, ostensibly to free her master, who is locked inside. Turns out that the maid is killing the master via a shot to the eye ''through the keyhole'' while the master was peeking through the hole.
* [[Highschool of the Dead]]. Takashi ''tries'' to do this, but resident Gun [[Otaku]] Kohta quickly stops him, worried that one of the bullets will riccochet and hit one of them.
* Done in ''[[Lupin III]]: Plot of the Fuma Clan'', but for the opposite effect most people go for. The lock is an old-fashioned one whose purpose is to disable the booby traps guarding a treasure stash. The person shooting it does so to trash the mechanism after his enemies steal the vase with the key hidden inside.
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== [[Commercials]] ==
* Commercials for Weatherby ammunition would show a lock penetrated, but not completely destroyed, by a rifle cartridge.
* For years, the Master Lock company ran TV commercials during the [[Super Bowl]] where they would shoot one of their own padlocks with a gun to demonstrate its durability. This is an interesting application of [[Reality Is Unrealistic]], because its effectiveness is based on viewers' expectations that a lock will break when fired at. (This commercial is referenced in the [[Stephen King]]-as-Richard-Bachman novella "[[Rage (novel)|Rage]]", when the narrator/protagonist puts his locker padlock in his shirt pocket, where it later saves him from a sharpshooter [[Pocket Protector|bullet in the heart]]. The narrator mentions later viewing that commercial, with adverse emotional effects.)
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* In ''[[No Country for Old Men]],'' the villain (chillingly well-played by Javier Bardem) shoots off locks, but with an air gun that drives a metal spike through the lock and launches it into the next room. As cool as this is, it is sadly [http://www.intuitor.com/moviephysics/NoCountry.htm impossible].
* Luke does this in the first ''[[Star Wars]]'' movie to keep a door ''shut'', cutting off pursuing Storm Troopers. Unfortunately, it also stops the bridge controls from working, making a heroic swing across a chasm (and a kiss that [[Brother-Sister Incest|later becomes awkward]]) necessary.
* Subverted in the film adaptation of Phillip K. Dick's ''Paycheck''. The hero and his girlfriend have sealed themselves inside a room, and she is about to smash the control panel for the door when he stops her and lets her know that will only keep them from opening the door from ''their'' side, not the bad guys.
* Played straight at the end of ''[[The Mask of Zorro]]''.
* Charles Lee Ray in ''[[Child's Play (film)|Child's Play]]'' did this to the lock on the toy store door.
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* Used in the movie ''[[Ghost (film)|Ghost]]'', as the plot is nearing its climax. Molly and Oda Mae barricade themselves inside their apartment and refuse to let Carl inside. He shoots out the lock with his ''small handgun'', with ridiculous ease. The lock simply falls right out of the door and he is able to open it without any further problems.
* [[Terminator]] doesn't seem to bother with pistols. An M79 grenade launcher works better.
** Still pretty unrealistic as grenade launchers have a preset safety distance before the grenade is armed to explode. At the range the Terminator was firing at the grenade would have harmlessly put a dent in the wall but not have blown it up.
** The Terminator shoots a padlock and chain off a gate with a shotgun from an implausible distance during the truck/bike chase in ''[[Terminator 2]]''. Oh, and he's on a speeding motorcycle at the time.
* At the end of ''[[The Leech Woman]]'' a detective shoots out the lock on the titular character's bedroom door, which at least seems vaguely more plausible since a door handle's locking mechanism probably isn't anything near as sturdy as a combination lock. At any rate, it's more plausible than everything else in the film.
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** Detritus later gets a siege crossbow called the 'Piecemaker' which can shoot out the lock...and the door...and the surrounding wall...and just about anything else in a 270-degree arc.
* There was a sci-fi book once where the variant seen in Star Wars - shooting it to keep it closed - was attempted, but it just jammed the door into "open". Don't remember the title, though.
* Lampshaded and averted in [[Sharpe]] - someone suggests shooting open a lock, but Sharpe points out that all it does is mangle the levers and make it worse. He does play it straight once, but in a way that would work. He shoots the door in. ''[[No Kill Like Overkill|With a cannon]].''
** Played straight in the TV series.
* A character in the ''Island'' series of childrens' books tries this to get out of a locked room after stealing a gun from the guard. It works, but the bullet goes through the door and injures the [[Big Bad]] standing on the other side. He's not too happy about this.
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* Played straight in several episodes of the 60s spy series ''[[The Man from U.N.C.L.E.]]''.
* In an episode of ''[[The Green Green Grass]]'', the Driscoll brothers use a pair of AK-47s and destroy every part of the door ''except the lock''.
* Averted in an episode of ''[[Monk]]'' - When the gang are trapped in a bank vault with a limited air supply, Stottlemeyer wraps his hand in his suit jacket and attempts to shoot the padlock off a utility box that might contain a phone line so that they can get help. Multiple shots don't faze the lock.
* ''[[The Goodies]]''. In "UF-Friend or UFO" Bill is being chased by what he thinks is an alien, but Tim won't let him in the door, so he orders Graham's robot to open it. The robot promptly disintegrates the door, so Bill can't lock it after him.
* Jack Bauer does it in the premiere of the eighth season of ''[[24]]''.
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* Averted similarly in an episode of ''[[Sliders]]''. A small security robot is chasing Maggie when a door separates the two. The robot proceeds to carve a hole in the door exactly its size.
* In the first episode of ''[[Wild Boys]]'', Jack shoots the lock off the strongbox they steal from the stagecoach.
* ''[[Babylon 5]]'' plays this straight and averts it, depending on the episode. When played straight, it is typically done by shooting all round the edge of the ([[Script Reading Doors|standard sci-fi sliding]]) door to make it fall in. [[Averted]] and [[Discussed Trope|discussed]] at once in an episode where Sheridan warns a group of opponents trapped in an adjoining room that the doors are made from an alloy that will deflect PPG blasts.
{{quote|'''Sheridan:''' ''Ricochet's a killer.''}}
* Averted in ''[[Bones]]''. Bones tries to shoot a lock with a revolver, and the bullet ricochets off the lock hitting Booth in the leg. He even knew it was coming.
* Averted in a Season 4 episode of ''[[Top Shot]]''. For one elimination challenge, the players had to breach three locked doors using a specially modified pump shotgun. Their trainer, a former Navy SEAL, took great care to show them how to do the job right: by tilting the barrel down at a 45-degree angle and putting the muzzle between the lock and the doorframe.
== [[Video Games]] ==
* Done realistically in ''[[SWAT 4]]'', you need to use a special breaching shotgun to do this, normal guns won't do the trick.
* ''[[Resident Evil 4]]'' actually has several variations on shooting the lock. Blasting the padlock with a gun works. As does kicking the door itself, although that will generally take several attempts (Leon's strong, but he's not ''that'' strong). It's also possible to ''knife'' the lock open. In each case, shooting the lock is not strictly necessary; you ''can'' shoot the chain instead, if it's visible. And for doors that aren't locked at all, but that you don't want to open, you can blow large holes in them. Even with 9mm handgun rounds.
** [[RE 4]] is all over the place with this trope. Some locks can easily be broken while some require considerable firepower, such as the cage fight with the second Garrador and numerous zealots.
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** The achievement "The One Free Bullet" is unlocked if you complete the entirety of ''[[Half Life]] 2: Episode 1'', firing exactly one bullet. Take a guess at what you have to use that one bullet for.
** The first game does this a bit differently for a few locked doors, though. If it's locked, you either aren't supposed to go that way, or you ''are'', and you just need to either get someone to unlock it/cut it down, or [[Door to Before|unlock it yourself on the other side]] after getting past it through an air vent or something.
* Similarly, padlocks in ''[[
* The ''[[Metroid]]'' series has an interesting variation. This is the ''only'' way to open a door, as your energy blasts somehow open doors. Architects must've been insane to build doors like this.
** Prime 2 explains this if you scan a door: It's a low powered force field, meant to keep the native (and not-so-native) critters out/in.
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* Played with in an episode of ''[[Family Guy]]'', when Peter rescues Lois from Mel Gibson. Mel proceeds to brandish a gun, which he uses to blast open the lock of a safe, inside which a slightly bigger gun lay.
* ''[[G.I. Joe: Resolute]]'': Duke shoots the electronic lock on Cobra Commander's emergency bunker. Cobra taunts him for thinking that would get him in. Duke replies that he didn't think it would get him in, just prevent Cobra from getting out, as it's revealed he activated the [[Self-Destruct Mechanism]].
* Used often in ''[[Archer]]''... and subverted just as much, as Archer tries shooting out steel locks on bulletproof doors, often resulting in painful ricochets.
== [[Real Life]] ==
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** Makes sense if you think about it, you don't want to be locked in with whatever is destroying those control panels.
*** Like, uh... humidity? Hardware failure? Battery corrosion?
* Works very nicely on a padlock holding a gate shut - the term in my hometown is "local's key"
* There's also the Knight's Armament Company's door breaching shotgun based off the Remington 870, the [[Stealth Pun|Masterkey]]. Though it's also a (very-short barreled, three round) regular shotgun.
* This trope is apparently [[Older Than Television]], with the result that one careless commando in a raid on St Nazaire in [[WW 2]] tried to shoot out a lock without thinking about ricochets and shrapnel and ended up wounding himself rather badly.
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