Haha...Poor Paul.
I was there, as I was the other RO, and just happened to be keeping score instead of running the clock. I was watching the shooter, but as the scorekeeper, it is my job to watch for foot faults and procedurals. The round went off so fast, everybody on the stage and people on the stage next to us thought the gun doubled. Basically it was "beep-boom." I didn't see it happen because I was watching feet and waiting for the shooter to settle into a shooting stance. Even the shooter was surprised when a DQ was not called, and I can tell you now, the RM would have backed a DQ call all the way.
Just because there is a wall made out of easily movible material between the shooter and the ground does not releive the shooter of responsibility for where his/her round goes. Basically, by the rules of this game, since the props are hard cover and supposed to be impenetrable, the bullet basically hit what is considered a solid object at 18 inches or less from the shooter. There is no way to bluff that,"I was indexing on my target and it was just an early shot." At the point the gun went off, the finger should not have been on the trigger.
In reality, as per the shooter, his shooting finger was not on the trigger. In the mad grab for his gun, his offside index finger went tot high, accidently went into the trigger guard, and as he obtained his grip, he lit the gun off with his left hand. The way an AD is defined in the rule book indicates that eventhough this action was absolutely an AD, it could not be ruled that way; however, it was USGH at its best.
No one got hurt, no one could have gotten hurt, everything was down range, and there was nothing but bragging rights on the table. Paul was a little to quick to announce a reshoot, but once he did, I don't think there was any going back and saying, "Oops, you know what? That was a DQ, sorry." Paul handled as he saw fit for the moment, and the shooter completed a reshoot. His gun handling never came into question again, so it is what it is.