Until it was taken down "due to feedback from our community about this offer and recent events," the Daily Steal on Tuesday's HomeRun.com - a site that purports "to introduce new customers and their friends and families to terrific local businesses that result in a win-win" - was "$48 for Intro to Pistols Class from Bay Area Firearms."

Chief instructor Scott Johnson told me that business for Bay Area Firearms, which is in Burlingame, has picked up since the Arizona shootings. He didn't write the lighthearted copy that accompanied the sale offering - "Ever wanted to twirl a handgun with the finesse of an action hero, hit a target with the effortless ease of Jesse James or ..." - he said, and he is certain that guns could have helped in Tucson. "If other people had concealed-firearms permits, they could have stopped that immediately. What do you suggest they do?" he asked, "bend over and pray?"

Johnson said the incident had "nothing to do with guns; this has to do with the heart of humanity. Humans will always figure out a way to harm everyone else, because most humans are rotten to the core."

The Tucson incident had resulted in "more people coming in and asking about firearm protection," he said.

East Bay mixed-media and installation artist Mildred Howard was the proud grandmother in the stands of Pizza Hut Park in Frisco, Texas, as her grandson, freshman Mario Brown, helped Eastern Washington University beat the University of Delaware in the 2011 NCAA Division I football championship game last Friday. (U. of D. graduate Joe Biden was at the game, too.) Brown, second-fastest running back in the country when he played at Bishop O'Dowd High School in Oakland, got to play in the championship game only because the regular running back had broken his foot.

The San Francisco Art Institute, where Howard is a member of the visiting faculty, describes her work as drawing "on a wide range of historical and contemporary experiences. Creating 'an architecture for the remainder,' she questions perceptions and addresses misconceptions," creating a " 'laboratory for creative dialogue' that transcends personal particulars and is transformational." Her response to the win was grandma-speak rather than art-speak: "It was something!" she said.

I hear that the San Francisco Giants' sparkling sterling silver World Series trophy, which has been making the rounds of California, is interrupting that tour for a trip to New York next week. It will be visiting Giants landmarks in the company of the most gigantic Giant of all.

The Lamplighters, whose production of "The Yeomen of the Guard" opens at the end of the month, are without a lamp. Rehearsing at Bryant between Second and Third, a dark stretch of street, says Joanne Kay, they'd put a Victorian-style lamp outside - plugged into an inside wall via a long cord - to illuminate away jitters. Sometime during a rehearsal, someone came in, unplugged the lamp and carried it away, a feat of nerves and muscle. "This thing was heavy," says Kay. In olden times, a company member lit a lamp onstage before each performance. This one had been bought in hopes of reviving this tradition, but after that idea was abandoned the lamp was used unsuccessfully to ensure security.

Noting Saturday's Chronicle caption on a picture about the appointment of Ed Lee as mayor, "Rose Pak listens as Melvin Lee and Steven Lee express support for Ed Lee at a Chinatown luncheon," Christina Walcoff observed, "We'll need more than a scorecard to keep track of the players."

Meanwhile, Sara Ying Rounsaville, whose mother, Ying Lee Kelley, was the first Asian American city council member in Berkeley, called Bloomers to send flowers to the new mayor on behalf of her employer, the San Francisco Foundation. The person who took the order at Bloomers said, "And no white, right? Because our new mayor is Chinese." In Chinese culture, white flowers are used only for funerals.

"I was touched that she knew and understood," e-mailed Rounsaville, "and I stopped and envisioned waves of cultural awareness and peace moving across the city." And a bouquet to her, too.

Open for business at (415) 777-8426 or e-mail lgarchik@sfchronicle.com, tweets @leahgarchik.

This article appeared on page F - 6 of the San Francisco Chronicle