Obama trying to play to crowd that doesn’t want to deal w/ him on firearms

It’s the photograph that’s playing around the world – President Barack Obama firing a shotgun, purportedly while shooting skeet.

Are you swayed? Photograph provided by White House

The president whom some in our society are determined to believe is some sort of socialist freak and totally unworthy of his elective office is trying to show himself engaged in that manly activity of testing his skills at shooting a moving object by firing at clay objects posing as flying birds.

HE’S TRYING TO create an illusion that he’s as comfortable around a firearm as any rural resident, and that he’s willing to respect the rights of people who consider firearms to be a part of sport – while also supporting policies meant to reduce the flow of firearms in urban areas that wind up being used to create mayhem and bloodshed.

That’s a lot of political spin on both sides, and I suspect that all Obama has done is created an image that will be used by all sides to mock him. It’s almost as absurd as that 1988 image of then-presidential hopeful Mike Dukakis riding around in a tank to “show” that he could be a military commander in chief.

It’s not going to gain him any supporters from the firearms activists who don’t trust Obama and are always quick to push their cheap political rhetoric that this president’s policies will wind up resulting in the day that the police come knocking down their doors to confiscate their firearms.

Thereby leaving them vulnerable to the criminal element that will still have assorted handguns and other firearms in violation of the law.

PERSONALLY, I ALWAYS thought that the people who argue they need weapons to defend themselves from these people are less interested in self-defense and more intrigued by the possibility of being able to shoot another human being.

One who likely isn’t someone just like themselves! Which is why I have a hard time trusting their rhetoric – particularly when they claim it is their “right” to own whatever type of weapon they so desire.

I’ve written it before, and I’ll state it again. I view firearms as being the equivalent of automobiles – which government officials always are quick to say are merely a “privilege.” You don’t have a right to operate a car. Why should a semi-automatic weapon be any different?

At best, Obama will do nothing more with this photograph than get a batch of firearms owners mocking his technique. Not that there’s anything apparently wrong in this particular photograph provided by the White House.

BUT PEOPLE WHO want to complain will find a reason – even if it only exists in their own imaginations.

But that kind of rhetoric is predictable.

If anything, I’m more intrigued by the reaction that will come from the people who are desperate for outright bans on firearms. Seeing Obama playing “sportsman” with a shotgun may well be perceived as a sense of betrayal on the part of the president.

It likely will be taken as a trivial gesture meant to get support from people who won’t ever back him.

WILL IT CREATE the same kind of apathy amongst the more urban segments of our society as has existed amongst the Latino population for the past four years – where we realize his rhetoric is right – he says the correct things.

DUKAKIS: The standard for silly photographs

But his actions create the impression of someone who’s not fully committed to the people who actually put him in office. Will we have the urban advocates becoming lukewarm about Obama?

Or will the sight of Obama wearing those earphones while pulling the trigger remind too many people of the sight of Dukakis in that helmet while operating that tank?

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