Unlike his more popular...

...Easter-centric cousin... the "Gun-Bunny" tends to keep a low profile. So it was an especially pleasant surprise to cross paths with him earlier today.

By way of explanation... after a little bit of running around earlier this afternoon... I ended up over at my buddy Bob's place. Now, as it happens, Bob and Mrs. Bob... in a display of self-discipline I one day hope to possess... are paring down their worldly goods in anticipation of moving house. It was this process that rained such good fortune down on me, or more specifically, on my son and heir.

Anyway... Bob casually asks me... "You think Neophyte might have any use for an air-pistol?" He goes on to explain that it is a particularly well-made, rather robust shooter and that he has a scope for it as well.

I take a second to visualise my son hugging me and leaping into the air making triumphal noises... before accepting Bob's generous offer.

"Well, what about that other one?", asks Mrs. Bob. "If you pop off suddenly, I'm gonna be stuck with the damn thing."

Turns out she's referring to a lovely Mossberg .22 bolt-action rifle that Bob has just finished showing me. Now, I'm sorta flabbergasted to find out he's looking to get quit of that as well... but when I express a willingness to take it off his hands... Bob puts that into the goody bag too.

So I get home and as anticipated, Neophyte is one happy little trooper. He is, in fact, so thrilled... he gets Mrs N to take his picture with the rifle out on the porch. He then borrows a screwdriver set and carefully screws the scope onto the air pistol.

Anyway... I decided to look the rifle up on the internet... and I came up with this...

"My Dad was 14 years old when he made this particular purchase (Eek! A child with an unnumbered gun!). And where did he get it? From his pediatrician (Eek! Doctors with guns?!). The good doctor kept it in the office, and my Dad came in (alone), gave him the $25, and walked out of the office and back home through his neighborhood with his rifle over his shoulder (Eek! Children buying guns unsupervised, unrestricted, and unhampered!)."

"Now what would a 14-year-old boy want to do after buying a new rifle? Shoot it, of course! So his Mom (my Grandmother) drove him from their home in Arlington, Virginia down to the NRA headquarters at 16th and Rhode Island in Washington DC (Eek! Guns in DC?!), where they had a small range in the basement. She then went home."

"When he was done shooting (only after running out of .22 ammunition, I bet) my Dad needed to get home. So he slung his new rifle over his shoulder, walked outside (Eek! Carrying a gun in DC?!) and caught a city bus back to Arlington, and raised no eyebrows in the process."

"Just a kid taking his rifle home."

Ah, yes... the good old days.

And thank you, yet again, Saint Bob of Northumberland County.

You will not soon be forgotten hereabouts.

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RELATED: Meanwhile, back in TCOTU...

No word yet... on exactly which gun club is responsible for the latest carnage...

In another wave of gunfire in Toronto, four young men were being treated in hospitals last night after separate non-fatal shootings in North York. Ironically, the second wounding -- of a 23-year-old man's groin on Driftwood Court in the Jane St.-Finch Ave. area -- occurred around the time of a memorial for reputed drug dealer William Junior Appiah.

About five hours later and 1 km west, police had to order a group of youths away from Driftwood Court after the 23-year-old man was shot in the groin. Reported conscious and breathing, he was transported to a trauma hospital.

Shortly after that 9:40 p.m. shooting, two men with gunshot wounds arrived at the Finch branch of Humber River Regional Hospital. No details were available and officers two hours later were trying to determine where they were wounded, including a possible connection to the Driftwood gunfire.

Don't look at me Dawg... I've got an alibi.

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LAST WORD: Paging Mayor Miller...

Say, Yer Blondeness... what part of targeting farmers, hunters and recreational shooters... is gonna deal with repeat offenders like these two guys?

Two loaded pistols and cocaine were seized after two men were arrested in south Etobicoke, police say.

One of the suspects had been banned from having a firearm. The other suspect has a record of firearm offences following the August 2005 shooting of a man in the neck.

Maybe we can "double-ban" them, huh?

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