The commander-in-chief, in a picture snapped last August, showed his mastery of a shotgun while skeet shooting during a Camp David getaway.
The White House released the photo Saturday, possibly to muzzle critics who suggested Obama was posturing when he talked about target shooting in an interview with The New Republic magazine.
The picture of Obama shows him with a literally smoking gun, its barrel pressed against his left shoulder as he pulls the trigger. It was taken on his 51st birthday.
Obama spokesman Jay Carney had no comment Saturday on the timing of the photo’s release, just two days before Obama heads to Minneapolis to discuss his gun control proposals with local law enforcement officials.
But critics, including the National Rifle Association, charged Obama used the interview to convince gun owners that the President was a kindred spirit despite his gun control initiative.
Rep. Marsha Blackburn (R-Tenn.) had suggested the President’s claim of skeet shooting was way off target.
“I think he should invite me to Camp David, and I’ll go skeet shooting with him and I bet I’ll beat him,” she said.
But the President — in jeans, ear protectors, sunglasses and a blue golf shirt — shows good form in the Aug. 4 handout picture.
“Up at Camp David, we do skeet shooting all the time,” Obama said in the interview that started the flap.
The President drew a sharp distinction between hunting or target shooting — and the gun problem afflicting the nation’s cities.
“Part of being able to move this forward is understanding the reality of guns in urban areas are very different from the realities of guns in rural areas,” Obama said.
“Advocates of gun control need to do a little more listening than they do sometimes.”
After the Newtown, Conn., school massacre, the administration proposed a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines.
The NRA and other pro-gun organizations are staunchly opposed to the Obama proposals.
