By way of Daily Kos (and a tip of the hat to Dave Weigel), here's word that President Barack Obama professed an interest in skeet shooting as early as September 2010, when he mentioned the fact that he'd practiced his rifle skills with the Secret Service. Obviously, reporters sat on this knowledge in the interim, never investigating the claim further because the matter had no real-world relevance.
The five members of Texas Christian University's national championship rifle team were already beside themselves to be on the South Lawn of the White House Monday evening at a celebration of all NCAA sports champions when President Barack Obama gave them the first shout-out.
"We've got the sharpshooters from the TCU rifle squad. Where are they?" Obama asked as the all-female team's members, standing near the camera risers, screamed. "I think that they may be able to give the Secret Service a run for their money."
[...]
Obama told the TCU team that he, too, practiced shooting with a rifle. "He said he practiced with the Secret Service," said Riford, who graduated from TCU in May and now works in Fort Worth.
Despite the fact that 2010 was a banner year for mass shootings in America, we were fairly well ensconced in our traditional discomfort over having some sort of national conversation about it. Since then, the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting tragedy has made ducking the subject no longer tenable, so we've moved into the stage where we suspect the motives of those expressing concern. That's where Obama's restatement of his occasional skeet shooting interests takes on new life, as he tries to assert some level of common cause with mainstream gun owners and sportspersons, and opponents to new gun safety legislation air suspicions and put his claims on trial. But, as it turns out, these claims aren't actually new.
Naturally, it cannot be underscored enough that unless skeet, deer, ducks and other animals and/or inanimate targets gain sentience and engage the services of powerful lobbyists, no one in the world will be talking about restricting these sorts of recreational activities or the guns that are traditionally associated with them as a matter of policy.
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