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My guess would be that the trigger was pulled while a round was in the chamber and the gun "malfunctioned" by firing. Chalk up another statistic for the anti-gunners to use against the Second Amendment.

You may be right, but his story checks out with the way most .380's work. Most, but not all, are cheap Saturday Night Specials. Most utilize a 'blowback' action which is prone to fire on impact or being dropped.

Regardless, he did not have control of his weapon. Either he had not properly unloaded it or, instead of keeping it concealed, he was playing with it in his office when he dropped it.

Either way, negligent discharge.

If he replaces it, I hope he gets something a bit more serious, that .380 was more than likely to just piss off a bad guy.

My wife has a Colt 1911 style .380. It is pretty sensitive to ammo selection. I've had to tap out the expended case twice in the last two trips to the range. It appears the ammo was too lightly loaded. The extractor pulled the case partially out of the chamber, then the ejector tab slightly misaligned it. The slide then slammed the slightly misaligned case back into the chamber. It isn't factory ammo. The ammo was reloaded ammo purchased at a gunshow. Looks like I'll have to work up a reliable load for her to use with that gun. We had problems with gunshow reloads in her Sig 225 as well. No more of that stuff.

You may be right, but his story checks out with the way most .380's work. Most, but not all, are cheap Saturday Night Specials. Most utilize a 'blowback' action which is prone to fire on impact or being dropped.

Nah, most serious 380's are "real" guns and not "saturday night specials". And the fact the the mechanism is mostly blowback has little or nothing to do with accidental discharges - the gun's lockup at firing moment is something else than the firing mechanism :).

380's are mostly pure blowbacks - that is, the slide isn't locked at the moment of firing. Mostly, too, they're DA on the first shot and the rest SA. You're meant to carry them with hammer down and SAFETY ON. On my Astra Constable, that means locked trigger, hammer, and firing pin.

Ballistically, a hot 380 round is not too different from a 38spc, and the guns tend to be a bit more concealable.