In a recent interview with Field & Stream, Barack Obama stated, "if you talk to sportsmen in my home state of Illinois, they will tell you that I've always been a forceful advocate on behalf of the rights of sportsmen, on behalf of access for sportsmen and hunters. I've been somebody who, well before the recent Supreme Court case, stated my belief that the Second Amendment was an individual right." In a podcast for iVoices.org, I interviewed Richard Pearson, the Executive Director of the Illinois State Rifle Association. Pearson has been lobbying on sporting and right to arms issues at the Illinois legislature since 1989. He has more first-hand knowledge of Obama's record on these issues than anyone except Obama himself. In the 20-minutes podcast interview, Pearson suggests that Obama's claim about his record is extremely inaccurate.

As for Obama's credibility on Second Amendment issues, an article by David Hardy, on the Pajamas Media website, points out that during Obama's tenure on the Board of Directors of the Joyce Foundation, the Foundation spent a great deal of grant money for a long-running effort to prevent the Second Amendment from being recognized as an individual right applicable to Americans who are not in the National Guard.