ARKANSAS SPORTSMAN

Obama photo a bang-up job

— Nice photo, Mr. President.

I was thrilled to see that you relax from the most stressful job in the world by busting a few clay pigeons.

Like you, I shoot skeet all the time. At least, I shoot when I can. I love the over/ under shotguns you seem to favor for target shooting, but I’m partial to a side-by-side for hunting. I love the way it looks, the way it shoulders and the way you can carry it all day in the crook of your elbow with the action cracked open without the slightest bit of fatigue. It’s kind of like a well-made golf club. When you swing it, it just feels right.

Look, just us talking here, but most times I’ll take a good semiautomatic over just about anything else, but that seems to be politically incorrect these days. As tall as you are, I think a Beretta 391 is right up your alley. See if Carney or someone can scrounge one up for you next time you’re at Camp David. You’ll love it!

I couldn’t enlarge the photo to make out the fine details, but judging by the contours of the receiver and the brushed nickel finish, it looks like you were shooting a Browning Citori White Lightning. Your predecessor, George W. Bush, is a Weatherby Athena man. I shoot an Ithaca, a poor man’s Weatherby. They’re all made in Japan, but we can slide on that because Connecticut Shotgun has the best American-made double, but only Mitt Romney can afford one.Or maybe Dick Cheney, but he likes Italian doubles, namely a Perazzi 28-gauge. That’s an expert’s gun. No, really, it is. His hunting buddies don’t like it so much, though.

Seriously, I think it did a lot to reassure some of the guys to see you shooting that shotgun. A picture really does speak a thousand words, and your example will inspire a generation of youngsters to take up shotgunning as a sport and hobby. You’ll be to shooting what Tiger Woods was to golf.

In Arkansas, sport shooting programs in schools have taken root at the club level and it gets bigger every year.The state tournament has become a huge deal. So huge, in fact, that the Arkansas Game and Fish Foundation is building a brand-new, ultra-modern shooting facility in Jacksonville to accommodate all the shooters and spectators it attracts.

Ultimately, those kids are the future of wildlife conservation in our country, andthat shotgun of yours is the symbolic engine that drives our entire wildlife conservation system.

It’s more than symbolic, actually. Hunters and recreational shooters pay a 10 percent federal excise tax on firearms and ammunition and other hunting equipment by way of the Federal Aid in Wildlife Restoration Act of 1937. Ya’ll in the Beltway call it the Pittman-Robertson Act. The insiders at the Fish and Wildlife Service just call it the P-R.

The federal government distributes those funds back to the states according to a formula based on population, number of licensed hunters and a matrix of other criteria. In our state, the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission has used it to buy hundreds of thousands of acres of wildlife habitat. Without them, there would be a lot fewer places for game and nongame species to live, and our world would be a lot poorer for it.

The P-R, along with its counterpart the Federal Aid in Sportfish Restoration Act, is probably the most successful user-pay, user-benefit system this world has ever known, and it’s all based on firearms and hunting. Your photo was a timely endorsement at a time when conservation is kind of a national afterthought, and we really appreciate it.

Hey, about that picture. You need to work on your stance. Lean into it, and place your feet so that you can swing your hips with the target. With the butt pad so far above your shoulder, the recoil channels through only half of the butt. With that hold and stance, no wonder you look apprehensive. That gun’s kicking the daylights out of you.

Looks like you need some different ammo, too. Smokeless powder shouldn’t produce that much smoke. And why are your barrels ported only on one side? I’ll bet that bottom barrel patterns pretty loose with no choke tube in it. It’s tough on the threads to shoot without one, too.

Come down and shoot a round of clays with us sometime. We’d be honored.

Sports, Pages 21 on 02/07/2013

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