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The killer claims it accidentally went off.
Even so, this is the kind of thing you need a proper trial to determine culpability. “He said it was an accident” after they had gotten in a heated argument and he lead her away to the gun room. His testimony absolutely not be taken for truth. And even if it was an accident theres definitely a case there for reckless endangerment/manslaughter. So I think the outrage at this news is justified
Reckless endangerment / manslaughter is a bare minimum. You'd have to violate multiple basic safety rules for this to happen even following his story
You can't just load and chamber and fire a gun by fucking accident. Oh whoops the slide pulled back by accident, and I accidentally had my finger on the trigger, then I accidentally pulled all the way past the resistance of the firing pin. Nope. You murdered her.
Very bold assumption that this isn't the type of guy to keep several loaded and chambered guns lying around ready to fire. Almost certainly is
Accidentally picking up, pointing and firing however seems less than believable
He didn't accidentally pick it up. He said so himself (according to the BBC article linked in the OP).
He was drinking, and it's a Glock.
Glocks have a "passive" safety. There's no manual safety, just this little extra thing in the trigger, which does not require an extra step to fire.
Negligent discharge is much easier with guns like these, in my opinion (because apparently there's significant debate on this, somehow).
A drunk guy accidentally pointing a gun is plausible (I've had it happen to me before, probably more than once). Add the negligence of a drunken idiot and possible shitty trigger discipline, and I could easily imagine a negligent discharge here.
There's also the possibility that it wasn't even his finger that pulled the trigger. He could have snagged the trigger on something, being a fumbling idiot. Some people have accidentally shot themselves when trying to holster guns like these. This condition is commonly known as "Glock leg".
Still, regardless of intent, the gun was pointed at his daughter, the trigger was pulled, and she's dead — a sum of his own decisions, accident or not. It is WILD that he gets to walk free.
Yes I'm familiar with firearms.
You do not accidental raise a gun, point it at someone, and pull the trigger. Total bullshit to say otherwise.
Also get out of there with that trigger nonsense. It takes a conscious amount of force to pull back a trigger. They're designed that way to prevent accidents. They don't go off because someone has their finger on it ( which is intent to fire anyway)
He may have been very drunk and in an altered state. He probably did something his sober self never would. But he still chose to do it.
The only thing you said that's even plausible is it could have snagged on something. Which of course he still chose to do a lot of illegal actions leading up to that
Correct. AFAIK, he did not claim that lifting the gun was an accident.
Any experienced RSO (range safety officer) would easily disagree.
Yet somehow, triggers get accidentally pulled sometimes 🤷🏻♂️. There's a term for this: Negligent discharge (not to be confused with accidental discharge).
"A trigger"? You mean in general? Like as a universal rule that applies to all triggers? That's not how it works. There's a very wide range of trigger pull weights, travel lengths, etc.
IIRC, most Glocks have a trigger pull weight of around 5.5 lbs (depending on model). It's not nothing, but it's definitely not a lot. Negligent discharges can and do happen.
Anyway, sounds like we pretty much agree on the rest.
And even if you could somehow accidentally fire a gun, that's the definition of manslaughter anyway, so the guy is still guilty either way.
Wait up, he accidentally had the safety off and accidentally pointed it in direction of his own daughter. They do say for an accident lots of things have to line up perfectly.
So I can see why the jury saw that his daughter accidentally having the opposite political views to her dad was immaterial to their judgment.
Dude still has to process completely pushed away grief though, so he’s got to be fun to be around for the rest of his life.
You assume he didn't leave his weapons loaded. And that he hadn't modified them with a hair trigger, etc.
This is the type of person that has an entire gun room, not just a safe or two, an entire room dedicated to guns.