Dinsmore

Yeah, 12lbs is crazy.

Yeah no problem - not to get too deep in the weeds, but the glock trigger is intended to fire a round whenever you have your finger on the trigger and pull it. In other words, if you pull the trigger, it will go bang. The trigger dongle is not meant to function as a safety device if you are pulling the trigger partially.

In general, the only safety feature of triggers is a long and hard pull weight, commonly seen on "double action / single action" (DA/SA) guns like the Sig P226. The double action refers to 1) cocking the hammer, then 2) releasing the hammer. Glocks are all striker fired, which means they only have a single action (releasing the firing pin, no hammer). That means that each trigger pull on a Glock is the same, in contrast to DA/SA guns where the first pull is extremely hard, then each pull after that (because the hammer is then cocked) is very light. This is considered a safety feature because you have to be very intentional about your first shot, but once you know you're going to be shooting, other shots are easy.

What's weird, as the other commenter mentioned, is that NYPD makes glock install a super heavy trigger in their glocks so they all basically function as a safety. However, the dongle doesn't impact that at all - it's just a tiny little flap that instantly folds with no pressure.

The firing pin block is indeed a safety device too, but it's unconnected to the trigger dongle per se (there's no mechanical connection). A firing pin block does block the firing pin from moving forward. On a glock (and similar striker fired guns with trigger dongles), the movement of the trigger (let's say 50% through the pull) pushes the firing pin block up so that the firing pin is free to impact the bullet (once the trigger is pulled 100%). The trigger dongle's job is to prevent the trigger from STARTING to move at all, thus keeping the firing pin block in place - the difference in weight between the dongle and the trigger is what makes them drop safe (in contrast, see early sig p320 designs, which were not drop safe because there was no dongle).

Edit: btw, that's why good trigger discipline (example) is extremely important for glocks, since you have no external safety (and outside the NYPD, a relatively light trigger weight).

Although it's not that hard to unmount a weapon mounted light (WML), you typically do not - it's just how your gun is configured. Sort of like if you put new laces on shoes, you can technically take them off, but why would you? WMLs are used to help identify targets in dark areas - especially when the possibility of actually shooting is very high - i.e. if you know someone with a gun is hiding in a basement, you'd want your WML on to positively identify them so you're not shooting at innocent people. HOWEVER, based on everything we've heard about these protests, there's really no reason that the officer should have had his duty weapon out AT ALL. They have regular flashlights for use in regular scenarios (like here) where you need to see in the dark but are not going to be shooting anyone.

OK, 2 paragraphs of background: Currently (and for the past decade) people in Gaza have had no control over their land or future - they are entirely at the mercy of the Israelis. You might see references to this as the "right to self determination." Palestinians in Gaza cannot leave, cannot trade with other countries, etc. Israel controls all land crossings and has a naval blocade on the sea, inspects all goods coming into Gaza, including limiting what goods Gazan people are allowed to possess. Attempts to give Gazans goods have been met with extreme hostility - see, for example, the freedom flotilla in 2010: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gaza_flotilla_raid

If a country controls every aspect of your territory, that is by almost by definition an occupation. This article talks in depth about the definition of an occupation: https://www.atlanticcouncil.org/blogs/menasource/gaza-israel-occupied-international-law/ (note atlantic council is a right-leaning source, https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/atlantic-council/). Here's a second source from the UN, back in 2022 before the current events. https://news.un.org/en/story/2022/10/1129942

So to answer your second question, "liberated" does imply the removal of an occupier. Under almost every definition, Israel is occupying Gaza and the West Bank.

To answer your first question, is it advocating for the dissolution of Israel? In general, no (yes, some people want that, don't "not all x" me). But if the real question is where do we go from here, how do we "stop the murders"?

If Israel relinquished control over the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, that would be what people generally call the Two-State solution. This is NOT the dissolution of the state of Israel at all, and in fact enshrines the state of Israel, but at a scale that give it by definition less than the entirety of Israel+Gaza+West Bank. While this has been the "liberal" position in the US, the US keeps voting against a real Palestinian state (https://apnews.com/article/un-vote-palestinian-membership-us-veto-8d8ad60d8576b5ab9e70d2f8bf7e2881). In other words, what we say we want does not match up with our actions. And Netanyahu has reiterated that this will never happen under his watch. https://apnews.com/article/israel-hamas-war-news-01-18-2024-73d552c6e73e0dc3783a0a11b2b5f67d

So if a 2-state solution is off the table by both the US and Israel, where does that leave us? Without a two-state (or one-state solution, with enshrined rights for Palestinians), the murders of Palenstinians will continue unabated. For example, in the West Bank (the other occupied territory), more than 200 Palestinains were murdered in 2023. https://www.doctorswithoutborders.org/latest/palestinians-west-bank-2023-was-deadliest-year-record https://edition.cnn.com/middleeast/live-news/israel-hamas-war-gaza-news-12-16-23/h_b60eefa90fd1779f9b2b8cbf8d823c41

Apart from this, Israel would basically have to either push all the non-Jewish populations out of Israel (known as ethnic cleansing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ethnic_cleansing) or kill them all.

Technically any unintended discharge of a gun is a negligent discharge because the user isn't following the 4 rules of gun safety. The trigger dongle makes a glock drop safe, but not safe from idiots putting their finger on the trigger (where most NDs happen).

In addition, Democrats do everything possible to make sure nobody left of center wins the Democratic nomination: when there was a real challenge to the corporate Democrats (Bernie in 2016 and 2020), they did everything they could to rig the primary process in order to keep out any leftward movement. Similarly for 2024, instead of holding debates to convince Democrats that Joe Biden was still up to the task, they held no debates and even canceled the primaries in several states. In 2020, polling showed that Bernie would have a much more comfortable path to victory than Biden, but Democrats were more comfortable with Trump than Bernie.

There's a recent podcast talking about this if you're interested - https://omny.fm/shows/better-offline/the-man-that-destroyed-google-search

TLDR; they fired the guy largely responsible for building google search and replaced him with the guy running google ads.

Everyone loves cowboy bebop, and a lot of shounen anime has penetrated pretty far - DBZ, Naruto, One Piece, etc.

There's a few separate threads of people responding to your comment regarding what marketing is, so it's probably helpful to add what the guy actually said in the linked article (I know, who reads the article anymore🙄).

"Marketing is dead," he said. "Marketing is dead. It truly is—I can back this shit up, man. There's no channels anymore—it doesn't work. You used to have marketing, communication, and PR. Marketing was essentially a retail theory—you were trying to get your box on the right point of the store shelf, and you have partnerships with retail stores. Those pipelines are gone. Now you've got the internet. Nobody is looking at ads anymore … all of the channels that we would usually market through are no longer really viable. So their function is also reduced by the fact that players just want to be spoken to. They don't want to be bamboozled—they just want to know what you're making and why you're making it and who it's for."

Have you ever even been to a graduation? This is an extremely common occurrence. Here's a video of Obama giving a commencement speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ImeOh36HVMw

I don't know USC's protocols per se, but I imagine there's actually a pretty decent list of people who all have 4.0s in a university that size. Unless you're going to have hundreds of "valedictorian" speeches, there needs to be some sort of selection process.

I agree - that's why we should not allow Presidents, Governors, or any other public figures to speak at any event because they clearly also come with a heightened risk to everyone there.