WASHINGTON -- Seeking to put to rest questions on whether Barack Obama was a straight shooter when he claimed he went skeet shooting "all the time," the White House on Saturday offered proof: a photo of the president blasting away at clay targets.
Color me "skeptical". If the President did a lot of skeet shooting, then why did it take the White House four years to release a photo? You don't have to look very hard to find photos of him playing basketball. But he's been shooting a lot of skeet and only one measly photo makes it out?
Yeah. Kind of like Romney, Palin and Kerry hunting. (Except that there aren't any photos of Romney hunting.)
It would seem to me that if the President was a regular on the skeet range, photos would have come out and at a time when it would not have been obviously political, like in `09 or `11. The political side of the White House would have been eager to do that, one might think: "See, here's the Prez doing some shooting. He doesn't hate guns!"
But they sat on it until now?
I voted for the guy and I'm not buying it.
UPDATE: Here is something to try: Click on the picture and enlarge it. Then take a straight-edge (like a sheet of paper) and lay it along the top rib of the shotgun. Note where that line intersects the President's head.
It would seem that there isn't a way that he could reliably hit a Honda Civic, let alone a clay pigeon. Yeah, he's pulling a Full Romney on this one.
UPDATE II: Lots of photoshopping going on!
UPDATE III: Har!
9 comments:
One shot photo op... just sayin...
I've shot skeet and that looks to me like a pretty low flying bird 'shot' if its real.
Besides that I think he's got his head too low on the gun to really hit anything, but I'm not a shotgunner....
All The Best,
Frank W. James
No Shotgunner would hold it that way. the toe of the butt is too high and the comb for what it looks like is not high enough for him. If I held a shotgun that way
I'd be mighty sore in the shoulder. Never mind no vest or shell bag.
Shot a lot of skeet and sporting clays back when, never mind practice at a rate of 3-4 boxes a week more for bird season.
Color me skeptical.
Eck!
Okay, but would you rather go shooting with him or with Cheney?
Frank, I think you're right. His head is too low on the gun. His line of sight would be smack into the receiver.
Former amateur skeet competitor here ... and Eck! already beat me to it.
The really funny part was the initial coverage from some news agencies referring to the pictured shotgun as a rifle.
Seriously, do journalists take pride in their complete ignorance of firearms?
What is the puff of smoke coming out sideways from the barrel, about four inches back from the muzzle?
He could be shooting trap, which would explain the low angle. Yes, I know trap is not the same as skeet, but we are talking about journalists here who don't know the difference between a rifle and a shotgun.
Yes, the line of sight does look off, but it goes along with shoulder position. Note that nobody said he was a good skeet shooter, or even a competent one. He picked up a gun, pointed it in the general direction of the target and pulled the trigger. Bang, photograph and sore shoulder, all in one.
Regarding puff of smoke coming from the top, that's a sign that the shotgun is ported. Look it up if you want, it's supposed to reduce muzzle lift, though there are those who claim that it's just frufru silliness put forth by gunsmiths with less scruples than a Republican senator. Needless to say it's not an off-the-shelf attribute of shotguns, it means this particular shotgun has been customized in at least one way (actually it looks like it has a custom front sight too, so in more than one way). The shotgun could be borrowed from someone who had already customized it, but clearly this isn't a case of Obama saying "We need a shot of me shooting a shotgun" and staffers scurrying to the nearest gun store to buy one off the shelf.
Regarding the position of the stock in comparison to the shoulder, if you do the geometry you'll see that this is the position that the stock would be in if it started in the correct position while the barrel was pointing at a higher elevation, then the barrel dropped down. I've seen this position before on shooters who've let their target drop too low.
In any event, I don't have any reason to disbelieve that he's shot trap (or skeet, whatevs) at least once and that this is a photograph of him doing so. The press generally is not invited to Camp David, so it's not like when he was on the campaign trail playing basketball with the press corps at almost every campaign stop, with photographers clicking away. So comparing this single photo taken by a White House staffer to the plethora of photos of him playing basketball taken by press photographers is just silly. Let's see, we call 9/11 denialists "Truthers", and we call Obama birth certificate denialists "Birthers". Shall we call Obama skeet-shooting denialists "Skeeters"? ;).
- Badtux the Snarky Penguin
His head is tilted and he appears to be using his right eye to sight down the barrel, not the (too low) left eye. Note that left-handed people's right eye tends to be the stronger one. Still, decidedly not the head position of an expert shooter. But Barry never claimed to be an expert shooter anyhow.
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