Maybe the prosecutors in those cases, which are likely a majority, where a kid picks up a gun and shoots his brother will suffer enough? I attended school with two brothers. They were both out playing in front of their country home when the older brother found a revolver beside the road. They decided to play cops and robbers. Older brother pulled the trigger once and put a .38 in his little brothers neck. Younger brother survived and drags his left foot to this day.
Granted, this didn't result from their own parents firearm, they weren't allowed in the home. That changed quickly and the family educated themselves.
But I saw that family suffer. I can only imagine how much more they would have had it been their own firearm.
I can't imagine anything worse than losing a child due to something avoidable that was my fault. So, not without compassion for the family. Is justice served by adding charges to the woe the family is experiencing? By not pressing charges is anything going to get better? I don't really know. My repetitive and probably obnoxious posts on this thread were in part my attempt to understand attitudes about gun ownership. From the responses I've gotten, the majority of the ones that have responded are just Barneys with a high level of unjustified overconfidence in themselves as responsible gun owners. You and one other person have made sensible replies and I'm not including the two of you in that grouping. Everybody else is fucking scary.
The absolute refusal to consider safe storage of guns as stated by some of the members on this board, convinces me that the status quo means that nothing will change with respect to gun accidents. As you say, the problem is with people, not guns. I think that the best way to change people's behavior is through social pressure -- gentle reminders and cajoling of irresponsible gun owners by their peers. Cajoling to attend training classes above and beyond minimum requirements. Expressions of shock and astonishment when a fellow gun owner is found to leave their guns in unsafe storage conditions. As far as I can tell, gun owners are wimps when it comes to self policing.
At this time, letting a child walk to school alone is treated with greater seriousness by our legal system than negligent homicide by a firearm within a home. Would stepping up legal action put gun owners on notice that accidental shootings are not tolerated as just "accidents"? Would this help to produce downward trends in negligent homicide with a firearm? Maybe or maybe not. At this time, my mind is not made up.