I'm not saying this particular incident wasn't a case of negligence, but I do agree with your analogy of the car accident. Shooters are some arrogant bastards to say there's no such thing as an accident. They parrot the words of people like Col. Copper and it's gospel. Sometimes accidents do happen. It's human error and we're all prone to it. Whether it be with guns, cars, chainsaws, or a broken rubber. Accidents happen.
The Mass RMV has gone so far as to change the name of the reporting form from an "accident report" to a "
crash report." If you've taken driver's ed in the last ten years (or had a kid who did, as we parents all have to go for one night to re-learn the rules with them), you'd know that they now teach the fact that accidents are truly that - accidental. There are precious few automobile accidents. A rock falling off a cliff right in-front of you is an accident. They are 'acts of God' and truly un-avoidable. New drivers are taught the difference between an accident and a crash.
Most car "crashes" are completely avoidable, and MOST of the time, are caused by some action or inaction on the part of the driver. They are not "accidental." Talking, texting, or otherwise being a distracted driver are simple examples. Speeding or driving drunk are other ones where if the driver crashes, it's "no accident." If you speed while texting and driving impaired, the resulting crash is INEVITABLE, not accidental.
I equate this shooting to the difference between a real car accident, and a crash. Nobody made the trooper wait until it was too dark to see, to raise his gun, to aim it at (a sound? a dog?) "something he couldn't see" and pull the trigger. Those were all conscious actions taken by one person, and done so (imnsho) negligently. We are ALL taught to know your target and what's behind it. The trooper took the same class as the rest of us, and consciously ignored two of the most important rules of hunting.
If any of us had done that, we'd have lost our LTC ON THE SPOT, had our guns impounded, and sent to jail, only to have to come up with bail money, and then have been found guilty of criminal negligence. Nobody is arguing it wasn't him.
How can this be anything BUT negligence? And how is it anything BUT a double standard?