Dinner anyone? Pigeons in the parking lot

I am so relieved that Governor Crist recently signed a bill into Florida Law allowing citizens to bring guns with them to work, so long as they remain locked away in a car. Finally, our state legislature has recognized the trials and tribulations that so many face driving to work, to realize only halfway through their commute, they forgot to remove those pesky assault rifles from the back seat of their Honda Accord.
Finally, after a long hard day's work, one can skip the long and gas guzzling detour to the grocery store, and yank their AK-47 out of the car to mow down the family of pigeons crowing in the parking lot. After all, what's better than roast pigeon topped with juniper berries and a peach glaze?  
Of course, the gun used to fetch the perfect culinary ending to a hard fought work week was stowed safely away in a backseat of someone's car, right in between the office birthday card for the company boss, and scraps from the latest company financial report due the prior week.
Yes, I realize the new law, which barring any unforeseen situations will take affect this July, would still explicitly deny gun owners the legal right to whip out Ol' Johnny and start shooting up the parking lot - for people or food. And yes, I also realize that the law's intent is to make people safer by providing a means of self-defense readily available.
And yes, for those who haven't connected the dots yet, I am not a fan of guns. In fact, I try to stay away from any sort of flying projectiles since they tend to defy all laws of gravity and hurl themselves towards myself.
We really are a trigger-happy country. We're so Gun-Ho, the second amendment and family values have actually been allowed to be married by our commendable politicians traditionally erring to the right. Guns and traditional family values have actually been spoken in the same breath by our festoons of conservative values in our nation's law making palaces.
I attempted to say aloud a sentence with "guns" and "family values" in it, but my head nearly exploded. Try to say this similar sentence aloud and see if you can survive: "Guns and family values - together - incorporated."
I must have been asleep, or perhaps not even born, when our gun culture became so insidious that even after such tragedies as the Columbine High School shooting massacre, the recent Virginia Tech and Northeastern University shooting massacres, no deafening national outcry has ever been heard to make it harder to obtain guns.
Sure, getting a grip of a gun has certainly been made harder over the years, but surely our country can do better. About four years ago, the Federal Assault Weapons Ban was allowed to expire. No thunderous outrage, uproar, or outcry, but instead a few pundits got together on cable news and debated the merits of the second amendment. And while they debated obnoxiously, the ban simply ceased to exist - blip.
Hunters need rifles and the defendable need pistols. Nobody, not a single soul outside the military, should ever require an AK-47. Our founding fathers had a noble intent with the second amendment, but we, a nation, have given a few fanatical gun-wielding crazies too much leeway with our constitution.
No one should ever be patronized for suggesting regulations are needed for our second amendment, especially considering the number of regulations our government inflicts on virtually every other aspect of our constitutional rights.
Guns are not the reason why people are shot and eventually killed; it's the cold-blooded killers who fire the guns. Even still, there are no reasons to refrain from making it harder for killers to get guns.
In the end, no matter your views of the second amendment, come July, don't tick off the shifty loner in the next cubicle over.


Matthew Christ is a senior at South Walton High School and a resident of Santa Rosa Beach. You can contact him at matt.waltonsun@gmail.com. You can also hear the "Matt Christ Live Show" on 107.1 FM 30A Radio on Sundays, 11 a.m. to noon and online at 30aradio.org.