Tragic news from Montana today. Gregory Rodriguez, the host of Sportsman Channel‘s A Rifleman’s Journal, was shot and killed by the husband of a woman he was visiting, the Associated Press reports. The shooter apparently beat his wife and, after taking his 2-year old son to a relative, drove to his home and shot himself in the head. In addition to his work on the Sportsman Channel, Rodriguez was CEO of Global Adventure Outfitters, editor of Shooting Times Magazine, and a contributing editor of Petersen’s Hunting, Guns & Ammo. The news is a sad coda to a post I wrote in January citing an excellent report in Reuters. It shed some light on the media forces that influence the national debate by describing how the National Rifle Association either produces or sponsors programs on cable’s Sportsman Channel and Outdoor Channel. That information was newly relevant as national attention focused on policies that might reduce gun violence following the school shootings in Newtown, Conn.