By The Christian Science Monitor

Published: Sunday, February 3, 2013, 8:08 p.m.
Updated: Sunday, February 3, 2013

That photo of President Obama firing a shotgun continues to generate comment and controversy just as he's about to leave Washington to promote his ideas on gun safety.

While some conspiracy theorists claim the photo of the president shooting skeet at Camp David is phony — digitally manipulated — most commentators accept it for what it is: A White House photo op to show that Obama has at least tried sport shooting.

“I believe that he shot skeet, and if he does it and enjoys it, that's wonderful,” Scott Melchisedech, former president of the Minnesota Skeet Shooting Association, told the NBC affiliate in Minneapolis-St. Paul, where Obama will talk about gun issues on Monday.

Still, Melchisedech suggested gently, “I could work with him a little bit on his form.”

A top official with the National Skeet Shooting Association said the photo suggests Obama is a novice.

“This isn't something he's done very often because of how he's standing, how he has the gun mounted,” Michael Hampton, executive director of the association, told the Associated Press. Like others, Hampton questions the timing of the photo's release, which was prompted by questions about Obama's assertion in a New Republic interview that “up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time.”

“Once it becomes controversial and there's problems, to talk about it then, that's where it becomes very debatable and is not being received as well as if he would have done this six months ago,” Hampton said.

On “Fox News Sunday,” NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre charged that Obama's aim is to confiscate law-abiding citizens' rifles, shotguns and handguns.

“During the campaign, when he said to people, ‘I will not take away your rifle, shotgun, handgun,' they leafleted the country with flyers like this, ‘Obama's not gonna take your gun,' ‘Obama will protect gun rights,' ” LaPierre said. “And now he's trying to take away all three.”

At least one Republican lawmaker (Marsha Blackburn of Tennessee) has challenged him to a skeet-shooting competition at Camp David.

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