the charge should be murder.

but am open to being convinced.

Did Ray Fryberg think "I never plan on seeing her again anyway so this is no big deal" when he decided not to contest the protection order? Why is a protection order from 13 years ago still in effect? Who's the victim of his crime? What does society gain by ruining Ray Fryberg's life and spending half a million dollars to incarcerate him for a decade? Does the punishment fit the crime, or is this just another example of the prison industrial complex run amok?

Had that protection order expired after 6 months or a year, Ray wouldn't be in the position he is in right now. Had the FBI or ATF denied his gun purchase, he wouldn't be in the position he is in right now and four high school students might still be alive. There's a lot of blame to go around, and Ray Fryberg deserves some of it. In a certain way, he's a victim of his son's actions as well as some of the government's inaction. Ray may have inadvertently enabled his son to commit murder, but he never had any intentions to harm anybody. As such, it's not entirely fair to villainize him. There are definitely two sides to this coin.