Gun owners stockpiled ammunition when the president took office in 2008. | REUTERS Why gun lovers still fear Obama

President Barack Obama hasn’t done much of anything to curb Americans’ gun rights.

Despite his 2008 campaign pledges, he hasn’t pushed to reinstate the assault weapons ban. And he hasn’t tried to force background checks on people who buy firearms from unlicensed dealers at gun shows.


In fact, he’s barely said a word about guns during his presidency, other than urging “the beginning of a new discussion” on the issue after then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords was shot.

But the National Rifle Association and many gun enthusiasts still deeply distrust and fear him.

The powerful gun rights group — which is setting aside at least $40 million to defeat Obama in November — claims he would gut the Second Amendment in his second term through a series of domestic or international moves that he’s been hesitant to advance over the past three-plus years.

( PHOTOS: Politicians with guns)

Gun and ammunition sales, which rocketed when Obama took office, are again on the rise as owners stockpile weaponry in part because they’re afraid those won’t be available if he wins reelection, according to the National Shooting Sports Foundation, a firearms industry trade group.

“He’s his own stimulus plan for the gun industry,” Sen. Mark Pryor (D-Ark.) said.

“I get the [NRA] magazine. I think he’s on the cover nine out of 10 times,” added Sen. Mark Begich (D-Alaska).

There is no more dramatic illustration of gun owners’ disdain for Obama than the Fast and Furious gunrunning scandal.

The NRA and its political allies have used the botched operation to rile up their base, claiming the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives purposefully allowed guns to land in the hands of Mexican drug cartels as a way for Obama to push new gun restrictions, including the assault weapons ban. The NRA scored the contempt vote in the House last month against Attorney General Eric Holder.

In 2008, the NRA went after Obama with a $15 million ad campaign aimed at gun enthusiasts in a dozen swing states, plus $25 million more for member communications about the election. A similar plan for the next four months is expected to revive Obama’s four-year-old comment that Americans in rural and poor parts of the country “get bitter, they cling to guns or religion.”

“A lot of people are still angry about that statement,” NRA spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said.

The NRA has its 2008 campaign website gunbanobama.com and is ready for round two with a widely circulated flier listing “Ten Reasons Why Obama Is Bad News For The Second Amendment.”

In an election likely to be decided by which candidate has a more energized base, conservatives say gun issues could have an outsized impact in critical swing states such as Colorado, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Florida, Ohio and Pennsylvania, where the NRA has a large membership base.

“It’s not the money. It’s the message. Educated, pissed-off, angry gun owners vote. And that’s what they do. Educate. Get them to the polls,” said Richard Feldman, a former NRA lobbyist and president of the Independent Firearm Owners Association.

Gun rights enthusiasts are especially worried about the possibility of Supreme Court vacancies, saying that any additional Obama appointees could potentially overturn the 2008 District of Columbia v. Heller ruling that affirmed an individual’s rights to have gun in the home.

Obama’s opponents also are on alert over U.N. negotiations scheduled to conclude at the end of July over a new treaty that could tighten controls on the international import, export and transfer of conventional arms.

Administration officials insist the accord would not undercut the Second Amendment or U.S. gun laws, and the independent website politifact.com also debunked the claim. Still, the lack of details has the right on edge. Conservative blogs have dedicated significant attention to the negotiations. NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre told the U.N. last week that the treaty must eliminate all references to civilian firearms.

Yet none of these issues approach the furor over Fast and Furious, the scandal Republicans say will help them at the polls after Obama invoked executive privilege to block the disclosure of some Justice Department documents.

Democratic Rep. Gerald Connolly, whose Northern Virginia district houses NRA headquarters, said the GOP-led investigation is a “cynical ploy to exploit a tragic death from a program whose antecedent was in the Bush administration.”

But Republicans are using it to portray Obama’s team as incompetent on gun issues.

“People view it as a really horrible screw-up for which people need to be held accountable when you have Brian Terry dead,” said Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.), referring to the U.S. Border Patrol agent killed in 2010.

The Conservative Caucus in an ad published Wednesday in the Washington Times offered a $100,000 reward to any whistleblower who can provide “Verifiable Evidence of White House Involvement” in Fast and Furious. “This is your opportunity to save yourself before Operation Fast & Furious comes crashing down like Watergate,” the ad reads, offering a toll-free number.

GOP pollster Whit Ayres said Obama’s record on Fast and Furious and other gun issues continues to resonate. He also cited an August 2010 survey he conducted for the NRA of 800 gun owners: 76 percent said the president was “anti-gun.”

“That’s about all you need to know about what gun owners think of the president and how energized they’re likely to be,” Ayres said. “I’ve rarely seen a politician rated more negatively by a large group of Americans than Barack Obama is among gun owners.”

Obama has taken pains not to upset gun enthusiasts.

He has backed away from several of his 2008 campaign promises on the issue, including a repeal of a longstanding Republican-sponsored budget rider requiring the destruction of background check records and prohibiting the public disclosure of crime gun trace data. Obama hasn’t pushed for legislation to close the so-called “gun show loophole” that permits unlicensed private firearm sellers to skip the background checks and reporting requirements that registered gun dealers must deal with.

The White House hasn’t tried to reauthorize a Bill Clinton-era ban on semi-automatic assault weapons that lapsed during the George W. Bush administration.

Obama has even signed laws permitting Amtrak passengers to carry guns in their checked baggage and to carry loaded, concealed guns when visiting national parks and wildlife refuges.

Unlike Clinton, Obama hasn’t sought major new gun laws in the wake of major acts of gun violence. After the January 2011 shooting in Tucson, Ariz., that left six people dead and 13 others injured, including Giffords, Obama made no public address specifically on the issue of guns. Instead, he called for more rigorous enforcement of current gun laws in an Arizona Daily Star op-ed that reiterated his support for the Second Amendment as the Supreme Court-affirmed “law of the land.”

“The fact is, almost all gun owners in America are highly responsible,” Obama wrote. “They’re our friends and neighbors. They buy their guns legally and use them safely, whether for hunting or target shooting, collection or protection. And that’s something that gun-safety advocates need to accept. Likewise, advocates for gun owners should accept the awful reality that gun violence affects Americans everywhere, whether on the streets of Chicago or at a supermarket in Tucson.”

Inside his administration, the word from up top is to stay away from gun talk. After Holder told reporters in February 2009 that the administration would push to reinstate the assault weapons ban, Rahm Emanuel, then White House chief of staff, sent a message to DOJ that Holder should “shut the f—— up” about guns, according to Newsweek special correspondent Daniel Klaidman’s 2012 book “Kill or Capture.”

Obama’s caution has done little to placate gun-safety advocates.

In 2009, the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence gave Obama an “F” for his gun record. The group has met with Obama since, but it still is frustrated. “I can tell you we’re very disappointed with his lack of leadership on this issue,” Brady Campaign President Dan Gross said.

Democrats insist Obama isn’t scared of the gun lobby. “Absolutely not,” said Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz , chairwoman of the Democratic National Committee and one of Giffords’s closest friends.

Wasserman Schultz said Obama had “done a good job on guns” but insisted in an interview that his focus has rightly been on the economy.

Sen. Jim DeMint (R-S.C.), a gun owner and tea party favorite, said Obama’s support for the Second Amendment smells of politics. “He’s focusing on pandering to voters and not splitting off votes,” DeMint said. “He’s going to stay away from gun rights. It’s a loser for him if he goes one way or another. It splits his base. The less said the better is probably good for him politically. But those of us who’ve watched him know he’s certainly not friendly to the Second Amendment.”

Fears over Obama’s intentions on guns seem to be driving more conservatives to become politically engaged than Mitt Romney’s record on the issue.

In Romney’s 1994 Senate campaign, he said he didn’t line up with the NRA. As Massachusetts governor, he signed a state assault weapons ban but had backing from the gun lobby because it allowed people to appeal a denial of a gun permit. Romney also approved increasing gun license fees from $25 to $100, though he pressed Democratic lawmakers to raise it to $75.

As Romney prepared for his first presidential run in 2006, he signed up as a lifetime NRA member. During the 2008 campaign, he answered a debate question by saying he’d been hunting for “small varmints.” He shared more about his outdoor exploits during another GOP debate in January when he talked about hunting for pheasant and elk during a trip in Montana.

In April, Romney told the annual NRA conference that Obama’s Second Amendment attacks haven’t come through the front door.

“The right to bear arms is so plainly stated, so unambiguous, that liberals have a hard time challenging it directly,” Romney said. “Instead, they’ve been employing every imaginable ploy to restrict it.”

Romney warned the gun crowd to be mindful of Obama’s Supreme Court picks, a point emphasized again this month by campaign spokeswoman Andrea Saul.

“Governor Romney will protect the right of law-abiding Americans to keep and bear arms, and he will appoint justices who will do the same,” she said.

Obama campaign spokesman Ben LaBolt defended the president’s record on gun issues while challenging Romney over his own background. “The president’s record makes clear that he supports and respects the Second Amendment, and we’ll fight back against any attempts to mislead voters,” LaBolt said. “Mitt Romney is going to have difficulty explaining why he quadrupled fees on gun owners in Massachusetts, then claimed falsely that he was a lifelong hunter in an act of shameless pandering. That varmint won’t hunt.”

Some Democrats and gun-safety advocates shrug off the NRA efforts, calling the group a wing of the GOP that doesn’t have much political potency. After all, 11 of the 13 states that the group targeted with attack ads in 2008 still went for Obama.

“You’re talking rabid far-right extremists who aren’t going to vote for Obama for a number of issues,” Gross said.

But Connolly said the NRA has influence over the political debate — even if it lacks a solid record of knocking off Democrats.

“Sadly, what has taken hold here in Congress is that they are all-powerful and therefore you dare not cross them,” Connolly said.