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 Columbus Dispatch:

A Lancaster man has pleaded guilty to accidentally firing his rifle into the ground outside a military recruiting center that he was helping to guard last week.

Christopher Reed, 28, of Garfield Avenue, entered the plea today in Fairfield County Municipal Court. He was charged with discharging a firearm in the city limits, a fourth-degree misdemeanor.

Reed was fined $112 and $25 in court costs. He also was ordered not to possess weapons for two years and placed on probation for that same amount of time.

It wasn’t the first time he’d had a gun violation. Reed was convicted of the same offense in 2013 and was fined $50, court records show.

The incident occurred last Thursday when Reed was standing guard with others outside the U.S. Army Recruiting Center near the River Valley Mall.

Like other recruiting centers across the United States, the Lancaster facility was being watched by armed civilians who were standing guard after five servicemen who weren’t armed were killed at two recruiting sites in Chattanooga, Tenn.

Reed told Lancaster police that he was holding his AR-15 when someone asked to look at the gun. He said he was trying to clear the ammunition to make the weapon safe when the gun discharged a bullet into the pavement.

Geez.