Jason, just two notes:
1. "Obama's a liberal, and liberals believe X" is a tiresome bore of a statement. None of the usual political labels are quite as significant as that, and people are complicated. Take it from me - I am now regularly called "conservative" and "liberal", to my amusement each time. I'm not saying you're wrong about Obama, but I am just tired of that line of argument.
Josh, I'm usually one to eschew labels like this, but in this case I don't think it's terribly complicated or nuanced. You know exactly what I mean when I say "liberal" in this context. And you know why there isn't much speculation required to guess that an urban educated person with Obama's political background is going to favour far more severe restrictions on 2nd amendment rights than the average person.
It's like if I told you that I'm a rural evangelical from Louisiana who attends church and rejects the theory of evolution. You wouldn't need to jump to some kind of enormous leap of logic to guess that I might be pro life or that I wouldn't be comfortable with gay marriage.
2. I would note that a majority of gun owners in America (and about 90% of the general population) support background checks, which is a key element of what is being discussed. Yes, again, this is not necessarily "what's in his heart", but again it's not as clean as you are making it appear to be. Many, if not most, gun owners support reasonable gun control measures.
Yes, but here's where we come to the problem. Most of us would agree with some sensible restrictions. Some of those restrictions are already in place, even in the USA, but there are a few that aren't. We know that Obama and co. will not stop with a few background checks. They will use that as a start to put into place even tighter restrictions. Every time there's a new shooting, you'll see a new wave of laws to plug the latest "loophole". Moreover, there are people who (rightly) don't trust the Federal government to implement the laws that it does pass in a way that is sensible and fair to gun owners.
And they're right not to. Take Canada for an example. Here our governments have been hostile to gun ownership for years. Shoot an invader in your house in the dead of night, and it's you who will be charged.
http://www.630ched.com/2015/11/21/northern-alberta-homeowner-charged-after-shooting-intruder/Want to own a gun? Sure, no problem! Just so long as it's "safely" stored, meaning that the gun needs to be locked up in a safe somewhere with the bullets locked up two towns down the road in a bank vault

(that's barely an exaggeration)
http://news.nationalpost.com/full-comment/lorne-gunter-canadas-laws-on-the-safe-storage-of-firearms-need-clarifying ... The Liberals intentionally wrote the 1995 Firearms Act to be as ambiguous as possible and give prosecutors as big a net as possible in which to ensnare gun owners. Their intention was to make gun ownership as complicated and onerous as possible so as to encourage owners to give up their firearms.
When there was a flood disaster a few years back in Alberta, as RCMP officers went through certain rural areas that had been abandoned or evacuated due to flood, they literally went through empty homes confiscating "unsafely" stored firearms (although in some cases, residents allege that they simply bashed open locked doors and whatnot and just took the guns).
http://globalnews.ca/news/1827143/class-action-lawsuit-launched-against-high-river-rcmp-over-gun-seizures/ “The door was completely destroyed,” laments Jane White. “The bolt from the door was sitting halfway up the stairs on a landing. There was a large amount of mud brought into my home, taken up the stairway on my new carpet. It was on my beds, it was on my jewelry boxes, it was in my closet. There were footprints in my kitchen around by the sink, over around by the dining room area. And when they took the guns they did damage to the walls… left dents and black marks.”
“I was rather angry,” said Doug White. “I was rather angry that somebody can come into your house and steal your property.”
Did those residents get their guns back? Not to my knowledge. That's what can happen when you have a government inherently hostile to gun ownership. I don't blame average citizens in the USA who are hostile to any measure of gun control.
It's like when evangelicals try to pass laws on abortion. The law may not be a ban on abortion. It might even be a restriction that's reasonable and that most people can get behind. But when it's certain people proposing the laws, the hairs on the back of any solidly pro choice citizen's neck are going to rightly stand up.
I don't know how to cut the Gordion knot. It's just the sad truth when you have two extreme groups warring over and ideological issue, often the middle ground gets burned to cinders.