welp…

Gun-loving conservative columnist accidentally killed after letting teen boy hold his firearm https://t.co/knaEI6kaoN pic.twitter.com/Yux1wR18jr

— Raw Story (@RawStory) December 29, 2016

M.D. Harmon, a conservative columnist who frequently wrote in favor of gun ownership rights for the Portland Press Herald, died this week after being accidentally shot by a teenage boy.

As the Press Herald itself reports, the 71-year-old Harmon was showing off one of his guns to a 16-year-old boy in his home in Sanford, Maine, on Wednesday. Harmon apparently let the teenager handle the weapon, which went off while the boy was holding it.

Both the teenager and his father were visiting Harmon for undisclosed reasons, and Harmon’s wife has called the shooting an “accidental tragedy.”

Harmon was a dedicated defender of gun ownership rights and would regularly rail against attempts to regulate firearms or even make the use of firearms safer.