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Why dont you give us your shot at an addendum and we will tear it apart ?

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Who the hell keeps a LOADED SHOTGUN in a dorm room ?? (Or was this an apartment?)

make the two incidents into at least two paragraphs. too much narrative i think. you don't need to mention that you were attending a football game and that you chose to have a beer...or that the cop was on his bicycle, lol...

Just say - On my academic....

The first is a charge of underage possession of alcohol in October 2007. As a 19 year old, I made a poor decision while tailgating and received a ticket for underage possession of alcohol. I was not arrested, and have since completed the Virginia VASAP class and an additional alcohol education class for school. This charge was removed from my criminal record shortly after.

Sorry, too lazy to do the second incident. I'd remove "my shotgun"... Just write licensed firearm. Also, I don't think you need to say that it was old - just that it accidentally went off.

We really need an addendum sticky or something.

You have way too much detail. An addendum is not something where you explain the entire circumstance of your negative situation, in fact you want to draw as little attention to it while still fully disclosing it as possible. In the rare instance where you have a serious issue or a huge red flag (ie murder, rape, drug dealing, bestiality) you might want to provide a little background info.

less extraneous details, more short and concise resolution.

shotguns dont ahve to be licensed in the state of virginia. And yes it was an apartment. ha if it had been in my dorm, id have been in a world of trouble.

Maybe something like this?

"On <DATE> I was involved in an incident where I was chasing a prowler or second-story man away from my apartment. In going outside with a shotgun, I accidentally discharged it into the ground. I was not arrested, but did have to appear before a judge, who accepted my explanation. However, my school required me to participate in community service as I was responsible for <OFFENSE>."

You probably need to put one of those rehabilitation paragraphs in here too. Something talking about how you're a responsible gun owner and that this is the only time anything like this has happened. If you've ever done a firearms safety course, I'd put it down. It might even be worth taking one just to say that you did. Adcomms may be concerned that this will happen again, so you have to convince them that it won't.

I hate to be a dick about it, but that you ran out there armed can say a lot about you to adcomms about how you react to situations. An accidental discharge means one of these three things happened: 1) you weren't in full control of your firearm, 2) you weren't watching where you were going while brandishing a deadly weapon, or 3) you were unaware of some mechanical problem/eccentricity of your firearm that you should have caught with routine maintenance and testing (like an oversensitive trigger).

And that's completely ignoring any possible knee-jerk "What if...?" reactions from worrywart adcomms or school administrators. It's hard enough getting into LS without people wondering if you're some kind of bloodthirsty psychopath.