Whenever someone suggests changing the Florida state bird, the National Rifle Association takes aim at the new critter. Well, not really the NRA, but Marion Hammer, the group’s chief state lobbyist and a definite capital powerhouse.

   This time the state Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission asked schoolchildren to pick a new bird. More than 20,000 voted for the osprey, a raptor also known as the fish hawk.

   That didn’t impress Hammer, who loves mockingbirds. And the fact that they are willing to fight larger birds that threaten their nests. “They are very protective of their family and of their territory,” she said. Hammer notes that in this dispute, she is talking for herself, not the NRA, even if she does use NRA-sounding arguments.

   In 1999, more than 10,000 schoolchildren signed a petition to change the state bird to the Florida scrub jay. Supporters boasted about how it will eat peanuts right out of a person’s hand.

   Hammer was unmoved. “Begging for food isn’t sweet,” she testified in a committee hearing. “It’s lazy, and it’s a welfare mentality.” Scrub jays had lots of other bad habits that disqualified them to represent Florida, she contended. “They eat the eggs of other birds,” she told lawmakers. “That’s robbery and murder.”