These are the main sticking points to me as well. And while I agree there seems to be an elephant in the room no one wants to talk about, the reality is that if (big,massive, huge 'if') he did nothing at all and it was purely a malfunction of the weapon, we don't want to come down on him as we have a hard enough time keeping our rights as the laws currently are.
I suspect he's not being completely forthcoming with everyone and hoping to play the victim card. The BATFE nor the courts were fooled, and he turned himself in this past Wednesday.
Just in case anyone thinks it might be cool to modify your weapons thinking "no one will know", just take a look at this:
How chilling is that?