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Hopefully this will be more of a discussion.
Over 30+ years of carrying firearms on a daily basis I have seen these terms swap places, and in some respects for good effect I think. The current craze of labeling everything a Negligent Discharge, or ND, unless it was a weapon malfunction, is I think missing the forest for the trees. Now I am not going to argue that negligence is not the cause of most, maybe all, unintentional discharges. It is. But arguing accidental vs negligent is conflating two different concepts. Those are intention vs responsibility.
Accidental, or unintentional, simply means that the result was not intended. It does not mean the person that caused the accident bears no responsibility or was not negligent. Dictionary.com Accident: an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss. Accident does NOT mean there was no negligence. Dictionary.com Negligent: guilty of or characterized by neglect, as of duty.
In fact, negligent is a legal term and you can have a negligent, but intentional discharge. If you are at the range and someone picks up their firearms and intentionally fires downrange while people are posting targets, then that is negligent and intentional. However if they pick up their firearm intending to put it in the case without intending to fire and due to poor finger placement fire a round, that is both unintentional (accidental) and negligent.
If anyone is thinking of responding with "If you put your finger on the trigger and it goes off you were negligent it wasn't an accident." It can be both and I argue in most cases it is. These are two different words to describe two different concepts. If I describe a shooting as "accidental" that does not mean it was not negligent. In fact, I would argue we could put all discharges of a firearm into one of four categories:
Unintentional and Negligent - Example: Cleaning a firearm and failing to clear the chamber before pulling the trigger on a Glock, etc. The user did not intend to fire the firearm but was negligent in failing to properly clear it.
Unintentional and Non-Negligent - A weapon malfunction that results in a discharge which is not the fault of the user.
Intentional and Negligent - Firing while people are downrange who are not valid targets. The user intended to fire the weapon, and was negligent in how or where it was done.
Intentional and Non-Negligent - Firing in a safe direction on a range, etc. A valid defensive use of a firearm would fall into this category.
Now I do understand what people are trying to do by using the term "negligent", they are trying to not let people off the hook by thinking it was not preventable. But I also think it oversimplifies the issue, and confuses two concepts that are related int his context but different. It also misuses the term "negligence" which is important legally, and is not synonymous with the way it is commonly being used in the firearms community.
Ok, my rant if you would like to call it that is over. I look forward to hearing cogent discussion on the topic, but fully expect some anger over challenging what seems to be "common knowledge" in our community.
Over 30+ years of carrying firearms on a daily basis I have seen these terms swap places, and in some respects for good effect I think. The current craze of labeling everything a Negligent Discharge, or ND, unless it was a weapon malfunction, is I think missing the forest for the trees. Now I am not going to argue that negligence is not the cause of most, maybe all, unintentional discharges. It is. But arguing accidental vs negligent is conflating two different concepts. Those are intention vs responsibility.
Accidental, or unintentional, simply means that the result was not intended. It does not mean the person that caused the accident bears no responsibility or was not negligent. Dictionary.com Accident: an undesirable or unfortunate happening that occurs unintentionally and usually results in harm, injury, damage, or loss. Accident does NOT mean there was no negligence. Dictionary.com Negligent: guilty of or characterized by neglect, as of duty.
In fact, negligent is a legal term and you can have a negligent, but intentional discharge. If you are at the range and someone picks up their firearms and intentionally fires downrange while people are posting targets, then that is negligent and intentional. However if they pick up their firearm intending to put it in the case without intending to fire and due to poor finger placement fire a round, that is both unintentional (accidental) and negligent.
If anyone is thinking of responding with "If you put your finger on the trigger and it goes off you were negligent it wasn't an accident." It can be both and I argue in most cases it is. These are two different words to describe two different concepts. If I describe a shooting as "accidental" that does not mean it was not negligent. In fact, I would argue we could put all discharges of a firearm into one of four categories:
Unintentional and Negligent - Example: Cleaning a firearm and failing to clear the chamber before pulling the trigger on a Glock, etc. The user did not intend to fire the firearm but was negligent in failing to properly clear it.
Unintentional and Non-Negligent - A weapon malfunction that results in a discharge which is not the fault of the user.
Intentional and Negligent - Firing while people are downrange who are not valid targets. The user intended to fire the weapon, and was negligent in how or where it was done.
Intentional and Non-Negligent - Firing in a safe direction on a range, etc. A valid defensive use of a firearm would fall into this category.
Now I do understand what people are trying to do by using the term "negligent", they are trying to not let people off the hook by thinking it was not preventable. But I also think it oversimplifies the issue, and confuses two concepts that are related int his context but different. It also misuses the term "negligence" which is important legally, and is not synonymous with the way it is commonly being used in the firearms community.
Ok, my rant if you would like to call it that is over. I look forward to hearing cogent discussion on the topic, but fully expect some anger over challenging what seems to be "common knowledge" in our community.
And I would argue the majority of threads on CalGuns are largely inconsequential to many people. 
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