By Frank Brill
EnviroPolitics Editor


We all know how powerful the National Rifle Association is in killing off any restrictions on gun sales. But shooting down the hopes of thousands of school kids to name a state bird? A bird so gentle that it eats from your hand? 


S.V. Date tells the story in HuffPost of how a bill to designate the native Scrub Jay as the state bird was stopped cold in the Florida Legislature in 1999 when the NRA’s state lobbyist declared that the Scrub Jay ate the eggs of other birds. “That’s robbery and murder,” she declared.


As for all that hand-feeding? ‘“Begging for food isn’t sweet, she added.”It’s lazy and it’s a welfare mentality.”


Good thing the bird is native to the state or ICE might be rounding them up today for deportation.