It is with a very heavy heart that I inform the readers of The Firearm Blog that Kevin O’Brien, known as “Hognose” to readers of his website Weaponsman.com, passed away yesterday morning. Kevin was a US Army Ranger, Green Beret, and veteran of the Afghanistan campaign. More than that, he was a subject matter expert, and a kind and patient listener and teacher.

Kevin began Weaponsman.com in 2011, with a mission statement that reads simply: A lot of nonsense is written about weapons, especially on the Net. Rather than rail at the nonsense, we thought we’d talk sense instead, and see how that catches on. Over the next five years, he would publish a wealth of informed discussion via the site, establishing himself as one of the most well-informed and well-educated voices in the Internet small arms community.

Recently, he had also agreed to become a contributor here at The Firearm Blog as well, and we consider him every bit a member of the TFB family as any of the other writers here.

The Firearm Blog extends its sincerest condolences to Kevin’s friends and family, and requests that our readers give them any support they can during this trying time.

You can read more about Kevin’s life and find more details about what happened via a post made by Kevin’s brother over at his site.