Gun rights activist and educator Paul Harrell ended his final YouTube video with an apology and a joke.

“Don’t try this at home,” he says in a video he made months ago to announce his own death.

• Paul Harrell’s YouTube channel has nearly 1.2 million subscribers.
• The video — titled “I’m Dead” — brought in 3.25 million views in one day.
• He died of pancreatic cancer.

The moving video finds Harrell sitting atop a snow-covered, fallen tree. It was filmed on Dec. 20, 2023, he says in the clip. He’d given his team instructions to post it after his death, which came very recently.

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The 58-year-old speaks for four minutes about his health, his misplaced optimism in his recovery and why he uses a crutch, seen resting alongside him. Cancer had spread to his bones, causing him to break his hip. While he discovered the cancer early, it wasn’t early enough.

Harrell was called the “gun dad of the internet” for his warm, non-confrontational style of speaking about guns, gun safety, gun rights and more. His aim, he shares in the video, was to inform. While the nature of the topic invites controversy, he never tried to provoke.

Harrell says he hopes his brother will carry on the channel, and after he wraps we hear from family who announce plans to do just that at a TBD time. They’re still grieving like his followers are. Response videos like one titled “Farewell to Paul” began to be published soon after the Sept. 3 news.

As he ends the video, Harrell expresses some regret in not being able to continue the channel himself. He’d planned 10 or 15 years, and even after being diagnosed hoped for two to three more years. It ended up being just a few months.

“My apologies for that, it really makes me feel like I’ve let everybody down,” Harrell shares.

His last words are: “So, as always don’t try this at home. And thanks for watching.”