That being said, my personal opinion is that firearms "accidents" in the strictest sense are extremely rare...there is usually some element of negligence and some abandonment of common sense in virtually every so-called "accident."
Sure there are times when a weapon mechanically fails, an improperly manufactured round detonates in the chamber, or a freak ricochet results in an injury on even a well layed out and proofed range. Such incidents do happen but are rare. If people treated every firearm as though it were loaded (i.e. don't leave them where children have access to them), kept the muzzle pointed in a safe direction, kept their fingers off the trigger until they were ready to shoot, and were certain of their target and what was behind it, probably 99% of all firearm "accidents" would be eliminated.
I agree. The point that get's most people upset is not that the deputy won't be charged, it is the double standard that the DA used, and where the public has generally been charged. When a family member is killed in a preventable accident the family will forever pay a huge price. I'm not usually in favor of compounding it.
Yes in many cases there should be a double standard. When a sworn public official is corrupt or commits crimes, or falsely gathers evidence or gets bribed, I'm in favor sending them away for a very very long time breaking big rocks into little pebbles with loss of all pensions and no chance of parole.