What's the difference?

[Tightline]

Between a negligent discharge (nd) and an accidental discharge (ad). It seems to me that a person who experiences an ad would also be negligent.
Point being, at a pawn shop that I frequent, the owner took out his holsterd pistol (they all carry in there) to show another customer how it fit a holster he was looking at. Attempting to unload his gun, he pointed it towards the floor and away from everyone and racked the slide. it went off, causing near panic in the shop. Ha musta had his finger on the trigger. The owner is about 55 yrs old and highly experienced gun handler.
Runnin out of time, anyway scared the beejeebers out of me-5 ft away.

[Chicken Dinner]

This may be an overly practical answer, but I'd say it's whether he caused damage to some other person or property.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Depends on if there was a pregnancy involved.

BKB

[Thumper]

I had a nasty discharge (nd) once .... but a heavy dose of penicillin took care of it.

[Thumper]

TL ... on a serious note, they are pretty close to the same. In fact, in the military, they ARE considered the same. As a civilian, I believe an "ad" is accidental and a "nd" is a chargeable offense and taken a little more seriously. There's a VERY fine line between the two. An "ad" could occur after removing the clip and not realizing there was a round in the chamber. A "nd" could be when you're playing around with your finger on the trigger and inadvertently fire a round. Maybe one of our LE types could shed a bit of light on the differences.

[Sunshine]

He musta never taken an NRA gun course!!

They pretty well drill it into your head to keep your finger away from the trigger until you are going to fire.

Guy was lucky no one was hurt or killed!

I might be blonde, but I at least know that!!!