The skeet shooter among the pigeons

Barack Obama is really just one of the guys. He wants to take away Joe Sixpack’s guns, but he wants everybody to know that he’s a shooter and intends to keep his own shootin’ iron.

Mr. Obama hunts pigeons, not deer or ducks or even pigeons with feathers, but clay pigeons. He’s quite a marksman in a sport that attracts even the country-club elites. “Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” he says. “ I have a profound respect for the traditions that trace back in this country for generations, and I think those who dismiss that out of hand make a big mistake.”

No more about “God and guns” this week. He learned his lesson about that one. This ain’t San Francisco. In an interview with New Republic magazine, he sounded like he might join the National Rifle Association if only someone would ask him. “If you grew up and your dad gave you a hunting rifle when you were 10, and you went out and spent the day with him and your uncles and that became part of your family traditions, you can see why you’d be pretty protective of that. “

But he took pains to say neither of his daughters, 11 and 14, join him and the guys for a round of skeet shooting. He wouldn’t dream of exploiting children, at least not his own. Nevertheless, trapshooting, as hunting for clay pigeons is formally called, is popular with the ladies. The president might not know there’s a Trapshooting Hall of Fame and many women have been honored with membership.

Some of the loudest and shrillest Democrats in the campaign to disarm those who don’t get to shoot pigeons at Camp David are now discovering repressed memories of happy days with a trigger. Joe Biden, the vice president and the man Mr. Obama put in charge of his disarmament campaign, boasts that he owns a shotgun. ...

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