If you told me I would be writing a column about Pop-Tarts this morning there’d be no argument. I’ve written about more mundane things in the past.

If you told me I would be writing a column about a kid who was suspended from school because his Pop-Tart was bitten to look like a gun, well, that changes things some.

(Bite by bite photos can be seen on our Facebook page)

It’s not really surprising I’m writing this column, however, because the gun argument is pretty much on everyone’s minds. Personally, I think everyone should take a step back and realize that putting more restrictions on gun ownership is not going to prevent Newtown, Aurora, Columbine or a street shootout between gangbangers. People who want to destroy life are going to find a way to get a gun even if they have to steal a weapon or buy one on the black market while the responsible gun owners suffer by further noose-like restrictions.

Enter then into the great Pop-Tart gun experiment conducted just this morning to determine what a Park Elementary School teacher in Baltimore saw when she noticed 7-year-old Josh Welch and his menacing strawberry breakfast pastry that she believed looked like a gun and allegedly caused a disruption.

Idaho?

My experiment involved two strawberry Pop-Tarts — Test Tart 1 and Test Tart 2. My goal was to fashion a Pop-Tart into a gun by eating it and, honestly, it’s not as easy as it sounds. Test Tart 1 ended up looking more like Idaho than any weapon I’ve ever seen and Test Tart 2 kind of looked like a gun but if this was this kid’s sin then I think his school owes him an apology and a couple of free Pop-Tarts.

Even if he did point the pastry at the ceiling and even if he did say, “bang, bang,” which he denies, the most stern discipline I could even think of giving this kid is, “Hey, Josh, stop playing with your food.”

Personally, I believe his story, that he was merely trying to make a mountain out of his Pop-Tart while the school was trying to make a molehill out of a strawberry Pop-Tart mountain.

I think you’re only going to see more of the same reactionary idiocy from those that don’t understand more laws are not the solution. I’m not even sure what the solution is myself.

Perhaps the most gunniest-looking of all.

I know the solution is not what happened with Josh and his Pop-Tart of death and destruction. If Josh was out at recess mutilating squirrels or birds then, yes, there is a problem but since Josh was merely entertaining himself I’m not sure we have a problem.

I think maybe the teacher who ratted him out has the problem if she believes a kid wielding a Pop-Tart is the problem.

And let this column serve as warning, the vast Pop-Tart gun fabrication has just begun — Lance Martin

Lance Martin is editor and publisher of rrspin.com