Yes, let's hope something good comes out of this. It's just so sad when things happen to the little ones. I'm sure the clerk feels worse than anyone.
Accident's do happen. My deceased husband was a police officer. One time he had to pull a 16 hour shift. When he got home he took his service revolver out to unload it before he went to bed and he dropped it. Had it discharged, it would have hit me. We both just looked at each other. He felt very bad. It scared him worse than it did me. This was a man who had gone through the service and the police academy. He had spent hundreds of hours at the range, and yet it happened. I'm sure fatigue from the long night was the reason it happened, but, none the less, it happened.
Yes, they do. I don't think anyone here thinks the gun going off was intentional. But that doesn't automatically make this an accident. Putting that live round in the weapon was wrong, flat out and simple.
Negligent.
The entire chain of events begins with that act and therefore it's not accidental, it's negligence.
Accidents are normally like that, but we all see them as accidents because we all know that 'But for the grace of G*d, there go ourselves" and we overlook acts that if viewed with harsh reality would not be accidental at all, but somebody being an idiot.
In this case I can't overlook the act of loading a weapon in the store. Whatever the reason, there are alternatives to using live ammunition and the outright lack of common sense and rule breaking goes too far.
I don't wish the clerk ill, but at a minimum he should be fired and made to make restitution to the family and to the shop owner who will ultimately end up paying the bills.