As far as the 4 basic firearm safety rules;

1.Clearly he didn’t assume the weapon was loaded and unload it before cleaning or “playing” with it.
2. Giving him the benefit of the doubt it appears that he did point the muzzle in relatively safe direction (downward towards the floor) at least until until it covered his finger.
3. It also does seem that he intentionally placed his finger on the trigger with full intention of pulling the trigger.
4.He certainly didn’t verify his target nor what was beyond it.

As we all should know violating any rule can get someone killed, or cause you to lose a finger!

As far as liability, it’s anyone’s guess what a jury will find.

The Officer did not check the pistol before pulling the trigger.

The shop had a loaded pistol in the display. I’ve never seen this done, anywhere. It is obviously unsafe. In every gun store I’ve been into, and that’s a lot, everyone behind the counter had a visible firearm holstered. The idea that a shop would have loaded weapons in the case, is not consistent with any plan to deter robbery that I can think of.

I am not an attorney. But it seems to me that if a clerk hands a loaded firearm to a customer, there might be an issue there given that the customer is now in possession of a loaded firearm. This depends on local ordinances, state law, etc.

In one New Jersey sporting goods store I visited, the clerk would not let me handle a revolver without his hands remaining on it! No one is going to buy a firearm they have not at least manually inspected. So there is variation between state in the matter of gun store procedures.

Apologies for that.

“A cop entered a store, saw a dangerous moron with a gun”

I suppose that there could have been a mirror behind the counter, but that would not be typical of the gun stores that I am familiar with.

How do you figure he didn’t violate rule 4?