You know, I see this AD vs ND thing all the time. I know it has become cool and popular to challenge each reference to an accidental discharge by calling it "negligent" but frankly, it is silliness.

An accident is "an unfortunate incident that happens unexpectedly and unintentionally, typically resulting in damage or injury." Another definition common in the legal world is "An unforeseeable and unexpected turn of events that causes loss in value, injury, and increased liabilities that is not deliberately caused and is not inevitable."

Accidents are events. Those events may be caused by negligence, but can also be caused by recklessness, and at other times through no human action.

When a gun is discharged unintentionally and unexpectedly, it is an accidental discharge. Quite likely, it was someone's negligence or recklessness that caused that accident, but that determination requires and examination of the causation of the accident, and cannot be made simply because the accident occurred. It may well be due to recklessness (a greater degree of "fault") in which case calling it a negligent discharge mis-describes the event and gives an unwarranted benefit to whoever acted recklessly, and it also completely overlooks the possibility that there could be a non-human cause for the accident (granted, a non-human cause is highly unlikely when a gun is discharged).

Let's not abuse the English language just because it makes us sound tactical and cool. In the case at issue in this thread, the report says the discharge occurred unintentionally. That may or may not be true, and if true, the conduct that led to the accident may have been negligent or reckless conduct, or could perhaps have been due to a faulty holster design unknown to the user or perhaps some other cause. None of us knows and therefore there is no basis to claim negligence on the part of the shooter.