PAIN TOLERANCE STARTS WITH A THRESHOLD

Pain tolerance is a measure of how much pain you can take before tapping out.

The pain threshold is when you start feeling pain.

Who knew? Let’s start there.

Where are we with the pain threshold of school shootings?

No one feels pain equally. It depends on the individual.

John Prine had an idea with this:

That’s the way that the world goes ’round.
You’re up one day and the next you’re down.
It’s half an inch of water and you think you’re gonna drown.
That’s the way that the world goes ’round.

Does it feel like more than half in inch of water?

I’m going to take a stretch here and say we’re past the threshold phase, but not at the pain tolerance point based on the opinion of law makers who seem invulnerable to the threshold.

But what exactly does that mean?

Here’s a sad jackassed example:

Who can imagine some stranger making such a remark? The same folks who ignore the horror of gun violence played out against elementary school kids.

I’m not here to point fingers, or guns, or assign blame, but why so much defense supporting one particular weapon, the one mass shooters prefer?

Go ahead and get your gun on, but not that one.

If you need an AR-15 in your hands, next to your bed, or behind the front door, why not step up to the real deal and join the Army.

Why the Army? Because getting booted as unfit for service would be a lower bar.

Look at shooters and imagine them in Marine Corps blues? Yeah, I can’t either.

I was an Army medic in the mid-70’s. We had plenty of guys wash out, get recycled to the fat platoon, and then fail. Goofy guys needed to find somewhere else to goof.

But at least they knew where they stood with their cohort.

I was the Platoon Guide in bootcamp and talked to them all. Were the goofy ones a risk? Yes, to themselves and the rest of us.

When they screwed up we all got punished. What happens in the barracks afterwards when the drill sergeants aren’t present yelling at us?

Party time. Blanket Party time.

I reminded the screw-ups to behave themselves, but they knew better than nineteen year old me.

This Is The Goal Of Pain Tolerance

Pete Carroll gets it.

He’s on the threshold in this edited image from Google search.

National Gun Violence Awareness Day didn’t pass him by.

Who else didn’t it pass by? Every family who’s lost members to gun violence.

They will be aware of gun violence every day for the rest of their lives.

Anyone entering their house and seeing pictures of kids not there don’t need an awareness reminder.

I’ve been in houses with over-sized pictures of young men in uniform. It’s a gut punch seeing parents with absent kids.

End gun violence? Is it the same as working to end school shootings? Go ahead and connect those dots on your own and see what it looks like.

It looks the same to this old granddad.

What’s your personal pain threshold?

I grew up playing sports like my friends and my brothers.

Some kids break things along the way.

I played a football game with a dead arm that happened in practice before my first varsity start.

My older brother was a Shrine All-Star as a senior and little sophomore brother wanted to play with him.

I hid my injury all week. On game day I mentioned it to the coaches. They taped me up with six rolls and tied my wrist to my shoulder pads through a hole punched in my jersey.

I rubbed some Bulldog dirt on it.

That game was the end of my first high school season. I visited the orthopedic man the next day for confirmation. He knew me after two broken collar bones and a bent finger.

The whole ordeal of injury and treatment can be a motivation to get stronger and faster, a reason to step the hell up and accept a greater challenge.

Or a reason, an excuse, to quit.

“Yeah, I could have made it the NFL, but I got hurt.”

“I would have been an Olympic champion, but I got hurt.”

“If the coach had been better, I would have been better.”

“I would have done more, but I was following orders.”

What’s This Guy’s Excuse?

“Going to the bakery, hun, can I get you something?”

One question: Where is his bakery? Kyiv? Syria? Afghanistan?

Four pistols with four extra clips in case things go down between the coffee and the donut?

If he’s carrying four Gloc 19s he can unload at least one hundred and twenty rounds.

In a bakery.

Since it isn’t a full figure image he might have two ankle holsters in case things go really bad.

Based on the image, what would you guess he’s got back at home?

Tell me this: if you walked in for a cruller and saw him standing there, what’s your next move?

I know mine. I’d find a snack somewhere else, like the other side of town.

What’s that say about pain tolerance?