The Marin boys' arsenal includes, in descending order of violence: two Nerf N-Strike automatic rifles, a pair of silver six-shooter cap guns, a Colt 45 squirt gun, a Clone Trooper blaster and a scale replica Tommy Gun passed down from my misspent youth that makes a deafening rat-a-tat-tat and has no little orange tip to make it look less real.

Is this bad parenting? Even worse in light of the Arizona shooting, when the fight over gun control and zero-tolerance policies in schools is once again ricocheting across the country? Should my wife and I be calling Social Services on ourselves? Or are boys and guns inevitable and harmless bedfellows? Literally. Our two sons, ages 6 and 4, have taken to sleeping with their Nerf Blasters under their beds.

It started over Christmas. We'd been watching "A Christmas Story," that Yuletide chestnut about a young boy's fervid wish for Santa to slip a "Red Ryder carbine-action, 200-shot Range Model air rifle." To which his parents' maddening grown-up refrain is, "You'll shoot your eye out!" It's a movie about family, parents, childhood, simpler times. My boys' takeaway was slightly different.

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But it was more than that. It was, Hey, now we'll have an excuse to get together and watch porn on our iPhones.

Actually, it was both. Something like, Hey, we're middle­-aged married guys with kids and we have no legitimate reason to hang out.

Think about it. Sports? Not when you can TiVo the game. No reason you have to watch live with the boys. Go drinking? Somehow it's OK for moms to have their wine nights. But try getting dispensation for a weekly bender with your fellow dads. Never happen. At a certain point, your typical Family Guy stops seeking out the Company of Men ‐‐ and all his references are Netflixed. We don't get out much. We turn hermit, unless thrust together by forces beyond our control. Like our wives.

"Do you enjoy the friends your wife has picked out for you?" a buddy asked when we moved to L.A. a couple of years ago. Matter of fact I do. But there's only so much quality bro time you can squeeze in at a 5‐year‐old's birthday party. The other thing you don't have time for anymore is reading. Sorry, that copy of "The Onion's Finest News Reporting" in the can doesn't count.

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