Few individuals have to consider the thought of being confronted by a gunman. Police, yes. Soldiers, yes.

But teachers? Now, it seems they must.

Consider this: as a result of gun violence, more than 100,000 people have died in the past decade. And even more disturbing, only 35 percent of those polled are in favor of President Obama’s gun-control policy — which advocates raising the requirements for a background check, and ensuring that gun-centered laws are more strictly enforced on a state level, according to CNN.

So why doesn’t this horrify us? Why are we, now, untroubled by thoughts of gunmen walking onto elementary school campuses?

We’ve become so desensitized to this issue that when President Barack Obama cried while discussing the Dec. 2012 shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School on Dec. 14, 2012, the National Rifle Association responded by saying that every time the press advocates and reports on a gun restriction, they essentially “tell every insane killer in America that schools are the safest place to inflict maximum mayhem with minimum risk.

But wasn’t President Obama’s reaction perfectly human? Isn’t it perfectly human to be horrified by both school shootings and by the new reality that schools are potential targets?

Even so, increased security measures at schools have become commonplace. Teachers at Oak Park High School must use keys to access the office and teacher lounges, and they are asked to wear their identification badges at all times. And let’s not forget the 42 security cameras we now have on campus.

But it doesn’t seem to bother us that it’s now a legitimate proposal to place armed security guards on school campuses, or that some schools in Los Angeles have security checks. Students of all ages have commented on how school is like a jail — few of them, perhaps, thought school might actually start to resemble one.

But somehow these proposals don’t offend us — not enough to act proactively (rather than reactively) as a society against gun violence. We accept school shootings through our inaction — this is America, we have lots of guns, and consequently — as Gov. Jeb Bush put it —“stuff happens.”

We don’t know what should be the appropriate balance between Second Amendment rights and school safety. But, as students at a high school where we’ve seen teachers actively consider shooting escape plans, we can say with certainty that the desensitization that we’ve reached on this issue as a society is appalling. The dismissal of these shootings — on the basis of near-religious intensity about the Second Amendment, or on the basis of a total disillusionment in the political process’s ability to enact change — is an affront to basic human decency.

Next month, we will be covering school shootings as our center spread feature story — so, more as this story develops.