Sounds like he’s a basically responsible guy who has learned his lesson about gun safety the hard way. I don’t really see any point to locking him up, if he’s willing to pay the family a big chunk of his future earnings. The only effect would be to waste tax dollars keeping him locked up, and prevent him from doing anything to help the family for however long he’s locked up. And he already saved taxpayers a bundle by pleading guilty.
We’ve got such a huge number of people either not being locked up in the first place, or being let out after obscenely short times, despite a history of repeated criminal acts and no evidence of intention to stop committing crimes, that I just can’t see the point of locking this guy up. Revoke his 2A rights, leave the manslaughter conviction on his record, and let him go do the best he can to set things right.
Basically I agree with you but the family might have felt that no jail time would diminish the value of the little girl.
It’s getting the the point where any accident in this country results in a prison term.