Something is sadly wrong in America when we have to have "active shooter" lockdown training in our schools and churches.
But that's where we are.
Thursday after Wednesday's deadly attack in a Parkland, Fla., high school, local educators were initiating or planning drills.
Lee Sims, the principal of Hixson High School, addressed his 800-plus students over the intercom, telling them a lockdown drill was scheduled for Friday.
"We said, 'We hope it doesn't happen here, but we'll be ready in the event that it does,'" Sims told a Times Free Press reporter.
In January, after the November rampage by an unstable former military man left 26 Sutherland Springs, Texas, worshipers dead and 20 others wounded, church representatives from Chattanooga to Southeastern Kentucky met in Knoxville on a Saturday to participate in active shooter response training. More than 500 people from more than 100 churches came to the two-hour course, according to WBIR 10News in Knoxville.
Not even our churches think political "thoughts and prayers" are enough.
Most Americans support stronger gun laws to reduce deaths and make our schools and churches safe again.
But time and again, Congress - and especially Republicans in Congress - stand in the way. They fear the National Rifle Association will get between them and their primary voters.
That's because the NRA is not your father and grandfather's hunting club anymore. It's no longer supported by individual memberships and magazine sales. Now it is backed and paid for by monstrous gun manufacturing companies - and it's the gun industry's best-known lobbyist.
The NRA uses industry money to make contributions to politicians who support its preferred legislation or oppose bills that it deems a danger to gun rights - or, more correctly, a danger to gun sales. But the NRA and other gun lobbies don't stop with political donations to lawmakers they like; they also spend freely to hurt opponents - usually Democrats - of pro-gun legislation.
For instance, Sen. John McCain ranks No. 1 among the 532 members of the 115th Congress in receipt of NRA support with the gun lobby spending $7.7 million on him - most of it expended against his opponents, according to Opensecrets.org.
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio comes in No. 6 with $3.3 million. Georgia Sen. David Perdue ranks 12th with $1.8 million, and Georgia Sen. Johnny Isakson ranks 36th with $130,000.
Tennessee Sen. Bob Corker ranks 51st with $79,203 in donations. Sen. Lamar Alexander ranks 132nd with $23,426 in donations. Tennessee Rep. Marsha Blackburn, comes in at 107th with $32,951; Rep. John Duncan Jr. is 130th with $24,201; Rep. Diane Black ranks 134th with $22,991, and Rep. Chuck Fleischmann ranks 205th with $8,922.
Tell our lawmakers to "just say no" to the NRA's blood money.