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.... 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. In a 2013 column, for instance, Harmon attacked proposed legislation in Maine that would have required gun owners to take a firearm safety course—in fact, he referred to this section of the legislation as “the worst part of the bill.”
The advisability of handing a loaded firearm to a teenager who probably hasn't taken a firearm safety course? Something that might've been covered in the kind of firearm safety course Harmon opposed.
