A gunman walked into a (high school/movie theater/University campus) with a gun, a machine built for the sole purpose of efficient murder, killed (insert number) children, (insert number)fathers, (insert number) mothers, and wounded (insert number).

I thought it would be efficient to create a universal template for the story lead of the next inevitable gun related tragedy that befalls our nation. Frame it somewhere, and keep it there until Congress passes meaningful gun control legislation.

The issue of gun violence has a tendency to spark highly polarizing conversations that do not last long enough to catalyze any legitimate action. With each near monthly mass shooting, we are once again thrust into the same cycle that occurs in the same setting. It is a disappointing show that takes place in the political arena.

The latest mass shooting to jump start this cycle involved a 26 year old autistic man who opened fire on an Oregon college campus, killing 10 and wounding 7. But the conversations have already died out in record speed. I am ashamed to say that I wasn’t even surprised when I heard the news. We are becoming more and more desensitized to these events, which we perceive to be nothing more than inevitable phenomena.

It’s not just occasional mass shootings like these that should warrant attention. An average of 92 people die every day in the United States from gun related deaths. If you don’t find that shocking, consider a recent statistic cited by New York Times collumnist Nicholas Kristof: more preschoolers are shot dead every year than officers in the line of duty (82 compared to 27 in 2013). Yet, our elected officials, controlled by gun manufacture lobbyists, largely do nothing. Instead, they and right wing groups like the National Rifle Association parade around the nation championing inaction in a time when lives are at stake every single day. The blood of the innocent students who died in Umpqua, Oregon, are on the hands of politicians who value political expediency over the lives of innocent Americans.

Following nearly every mass shooting, a subtle mantra is chanted by entitled gun owners who would rather turn a blind eye than confront an inconvenient truth.

This time, it was said outright by presidential candidate Jeb Bush: “Things happen.” Imagine if he said the same thing after 9/11.

These words are carefully chosen to create a sense of apathy and complacency, smothering necessary action in its tracks. This aversion is also responsible for a perverse victim blaming culture when it comes to gun control.

After the shooting in Oregon, Ben Carson also took center stage to give the shooter’s victims some feedback on what they did wrong: “I would not just stand there and let him shoot me.” He might be a moron, but I am sure he knows that getting shot isn’t a choice. This way of shifting the focus of the conversation from the shooter to the victim is more commonplace than one might think.

We live in a community with relatively no gun culture, but we still regularly practice barricading ourselves in our classes to protect against potential shooters. We practice these drills in the same fashion we practice earthquake drills. And we have come to believe that mass shootings are as inevitable and as uncontrollable as natural disasters.

Whether or not a gun gets into the hands of a psychopath can be controlled, but instead of addressing the problem of gun violence, we instill a sense of fear into young children whose development is affected by the realization that even our country’s leaders believe that the next mass shooting is unavoidable. Decades after meaningful gun control legislation is passed, we will laugh at the absurdity of code red drills the same way we now laugh at the absurdity of duck and cover drills from the 80’s.

Guns don’t kill people. People kill people. You’re right, but people who do kill people use guns as an efficient means of their carnage. It’s not that difficult to understand. I don’t want to live in a nation where the balance between life and death for ordinary citizens exists on the trigger finger of an over-zealous and possibly mentally unstable gun owner, and I am sure most of the American public doesn’t either.