As many know, the dandy from Chicago made a claim that he enjoys shooting skeet at Camp David. Fine. The media went into a frenzy with questions of, “How often?” and, “Does he actually enjoy it?”- But none of it matters nearly as much as the fact that as we bicker back and forth about the nature of his skeet shooting, he is, as we speak, working to diminish our Second Amendment rights.
So Obama shot a gun. Who cares?
Many are wondering how often or with how much enthusiasm President Obama has shot a gun. Honestly, whether he has ever fired a gun is completely irrelevant; we should all be less concerned about what he does with his gun rights and much more concerned with what he intends to do about your gun rights.
Obama’s attempt to gain some sort of “sportsman cred” is awkwardly funny. I like a good Obama joke as much as the next guy. Regardless of political ideology, one of the perks of having a president is poking a bit of fun at them and how they come across. (Remember Dana Carvey as George H.W. Bush? Classic.) But if we would all be honest, we would note that Obama is a bit of an elitist who is partial to his ivory tower and unwilling to get his hands dirty like the rest of us. So whether or not Obama shoots skeet, the fact remains that he is not, nor has ever been, a dyed-in-the-wool friend of the American gun owner. I’m much less interested in his willingness to begrudgingly shoot a gun than his apparent willingness to restrict my ability to do so for my own defense.
The problem with the “skeet shooting debate” is that it detracts from the central issues of the gun rights debate. The White House photo of Obama shooting skeet is a projection of the false belief that the Second Amendment is a sporting consideration. It’s not.
The Second Amendment is a provision for Americans to protect themselves. It protects them from an intruder at 3 o’clock in the morning and it protects us on a much larger, collective scale. An armed populace is a great deterrent against the formation of a tyrannical government. And that fact scares the heck out of this administration.
After gruesomely capitalizing on the tragedy at Sandy Hook, Obama and Biden have taken to campaigning to convince America it’s in their best interest to give up their rights. Selling Americans on the upside of gun control is like selling ants on the upside of Raid.
The Scooby and Shaggy of the Executive Branch have hit a bit of a snag, though- it turns out that Americans are a bit stubborn about giving up their rights and the whole “shall not be infringed” thing. So, to appear more like “one of them,” the duo has tried to appear more sensitive to the plight of the American gun owner by coming for their gun rights while still insisting that they, too, believe in the Second Amendment… they just believe in some infringements.
Hence, the photo of President Momjeans shooting a gun.
But we cannot forget that this is the same man who, in 2008 and on his best behavior, claimed that rural Americans get bitter and “cling to guns or religion.”
This is the same man who hails from Chicago- the crime-riddled wasteland of gun violence that, not surprisingly, has the strictest gun control in the country.
This is the same man who seized authority that he did not have to enact 23 gun control measures.
And this is the same man who repeatedly fosters discussion of Second Amendment rights by discussing the proud tradition of family hunting trips- subtly implying that the Second Amendment is a function of protecting grandpa’s single-shot .410.
The skeet shooting debate needs to take a back seat to the much, much more important gun rights debate that is occurring across the country. Obama’s campaign machine has sprung to life and he is on a mission to convince Americans that giving up their Second Amendment rights is just a function of “common sense gun control measures.”
President Obama may not be fighting to remove the double-barreled shotguns (yet). But he’s fighting to get his foot in the door by posing as someone who is on your side, someone who understands your hesitation.
And that’s the way con men operate and dictators rise to power.
Rusty Humphries is a nationally syndicated radio host heard across the USA on over 300 radio stations and is listed as the 6th largest radio audience by Talkers Magazine. He is also a regular contributor to TPNN.com
