Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.

The line is spoken by Atticus Finch in Harper Lee’s novel *To Kill a Mockingbird* (1960) as he gives Jem and Scout air rifles and instructs them about responsible use of a gun. In the story’s Depression-era Maycomb, Alabama setting, Atticus distinguishes between pests or game and harmless creatures. Miss Maudie later reinforces the lesson by explaining that mockingbirds “don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy,” turning Atticus’s rule into a moral touchstone that frames the novel’s larger concerns with innocence, cruelty, and unjust punishment.

Atticus’s advice uses a simple hunting rule to express an ethical principle: power should not be used against the harmless. The mockingbird becomes a symbol for innocence—beings who cause no injury and instead offer quiet good (song, beauty, companionship). Calling its killing a “sin” elevates the point beyond etiquette into conscience and moral law. In the novel, the metaphor extends to vulnerable people harmed by prejudice and social violence; the community’s willingness to “kill” what is innocent becomes a measure of its moral failure, while Atticus’s stance models restraint, empathy, and justice.