NRA shooting game no longer for preschoolers
WASHINGTON (AP) - A new shooting game for mobile devices by the National Rifle Association is no longer being labeled suitable for preschoolers. "NRA: Practice Range" changed its age recommendation on Tuesday from 4 years and up to at least 12 years of age with an added warning that the game depicts "intense" and "realistic" violence.
The move came amid pushback from liberal organizations that called the game tasteless and its timing politically motivated. It was released Sunday. This week is the one-month anniversary of the shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 children and six adults dead, and the same week President Barack Obama is expected to announce his plan for curbing gun violence.
A progressive advocacy organization, Courage Campaign, on Tuesday circulated an online petition asking Apple to drop the free mobile application from its store.
"This is a classic example of everything that is wrong with the NRA. Instead of coming to the table with constructive ideas to reduce gun violence, the NRA is instead developing a video game that glorifies guns and gun violence," said Adam Bink, director of the group's online programs.
Apple declined to comment.
The NRA did not respond to repeated calls for comment. It also hasn't claimed ownership of the game, with no mention of it on its website. But the app refers to itself as the "National Rifle Association's new mobile nerve center, delivering one-touch access to the NRA network of news, laws, facts, knowledge, safety tips, educational materials and online resources." The main menu in the game includes an NRA information section that leads users to the lobbying group's website.
MEDL Media of Fountain Valley, Calif., which developed the game, also did not respond to requests for comment. The New York Times reported late Tuesday that MEDL had confirmed that the game had been commissioned by the NRA.
In just two days, the mobile app generated more than 300 online reviews. That figure jumped to 519 by late Tuesday, with an overwhelming number of reviews praising the NRA for defending the Second Amendment to the Constitution and teaching firearms safety.
The game actually sounds more stirring than it is, which is really a high-tech pamphlet to disseminate the NRA's political message. The game lets a user fire various simulated weapons to hit targets on shooting ranges. The app does not depict the shooting of living targets. The only thing resembling a life form is the camouflage-clad right hand players see holding the gun, and the occasional left hand used to reload.
A week after the Newtown shooting, NRA executive Wayne LaPierre blamed violent video games and movies, and not guns, for contributing to mass shootings.
"There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people," he said during a Dec. 21 news conference.
The NRA mobile app allows players to use one type of gun per range: A pistol for indoors, an assault rifle for outdoors and a shotgun for skeet shooting. As part of the free app players can use an M9 pistol, an M16 rifle and a Mossberg 500 shotgun. Other brands, like an AK-47 assault rifle, are available for in-app download at .99 cents each.
The object is to hit as many targets of varying size as possible in a minute, and there are three levels of difficulty within each range. The first two ranges allow 15 rounds of ammunition without reloading, the third five. The guns look, act and sound a lot like their real-life counterparts. When a player fires, a blast of light shows and the gun bucks a little.
The targets are shaped like giant martini shakers, a bull's eye circle and a clay disc.
While each range or gun or level is loading, there's an NRA tip or a fact, like "Know your target and what is behind it," and "Always keep a gun pointed in a safe direction."
The move came amid pushback from liberal organizations that called the game tasteless and its timing politically motivated. It was released Sunday. This week is the one-month anniversary of the shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school that left 20 children and six adults dead, and the same week President Barack Obama is expected to announce his plan for curbing gun violence.
A progressive advocacy organization, Courage Campaign, on Tuesday circulated an online petition asking Apple to drop the free mobile application from its store.
"This is a classic example of everything that is wrong with the NRA. Instead of coming to the table with constructive ideas to reduce gun violence, the NRA is instead developing a video game that glorifies guns and gun violence," said Adam Bink, director of the group's online programs.
Apple declined to comment.
The NRA did not respond to repeated calls for comment. It also hasn't claimed ownership of the game, with no mention of it on its website. But the app refers to itself as the "National Rifle Association's new mobile nerve center, delivering one-touch access to the NRA network of news, laws, facts, knowledge, safety tips, educational materials and online resources." The main menu in the game includes an NRA information section that leads users to the lobbying group's website.
MEDL Media of Fountain Valley, Calif., which developed the game, also did not respond to requests for comment. The New York Times reported late Tuesday that MEDL had confirmed that the game had been commissioned by the NRA.
In just two days, the mobile app generated more than 300 online reviews. That figure jumped to 519 by late Tuesday, with an overwhelming number of reviews praising the NRA for defending the Second Amendment to the Constitution and teaching firearms safety.
The game actually sounds more stirring than it is, which is really a high-tech pamphlet to disseminate the NRA's political message. The game lets a user fire various simulated weapons to hit targets on shooting ranges. The app does not depict the shooting of living targets. The only thing resembling a life form is the camouflage-clad right hand players see holding the gun, and the occasional left hand used to reload.
A week after the Newtown shooting, NRA executive Wayne LaPierre blamed violent video games and movies, and not guns, for contributing to mass shootings.
"There exists in this country a callous, corrupt and corrupting shadow industry that sells, and sows, violence against its own people," he said during a Dec. 21 news conference.
The NRA mobile app allows players to use one type of gun per range: A pistol for indoors, an assault rifle for outdoors and a shotgun for skeet shooting. As part of the free app players can use an M9 pistol, an M16 rifle and a Mossberg 500 shotgun. Other brands, like an AK-47 assault rifle, are available for in-app download at .99 cents each.
The object is to hit as many targets of varying size as possible in a minute, and there are three levels of difficulty within each range. The first two ranges allow 15 rounds of ammunition without reloading, the third five. The guns look, act and sound a lot like their real-life counterparts. When a player fires, a blast of light shows and the gun bucks a little.
The targets are shaped like giant martini shakers, a bull's eye circle and a clay disc.
While each range or gun or level is loading, there's an NRA tip or a fact, like "Know your target and what is behind it," and "Always keep a gun pointed in a safe direction."
Tacky and lame, NRA. I'm defending the 2nd Amendment as strongly as I can and we don't need you guys simultaneously condemning and creating video games. Come up for air.
i like the nintendo wii game where you knife fight with people. forgot its name.
NRgay.
 @GNTLwarrior Are those your actual initials? NR?
Lets just buy all of our kids easy bake ovens! They can throw fake cookies at targets. What a bunch of B.S.
This isn't about the NRA, well except as an excuse for poking them with a stick. What this is really about is more people with the incorrect notion that video games cause mass shootings. They don't.
 @JTesla Michael Moore rightfully addressed this in Bowling for Columbine. Kids in Alaska and Canada have as many guns as Americans, and kids in Europe play the same video games and listen to the same death metal, etc. But as a friend of mine pointed out, if this kind of conditioning didn't work, there wouldn't be a multi-billion-dollar TV advertising agency and video games with product placement in them. I'm trying to justify agreeing with you, because I do, but...
 @JTesla If they did we would be having several a day given the 20 million kids from age 8 to lets say 50 something in my case that play them...
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Although those already mentally ill may be more likely to mimic game action. At least it appears that way since the last 3-4 have dressed up like they are in a video game before going out and killing.
If you push back at the NRA and lawful gun owners expect to reap a s%^t storm. We will not take this laying down.
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Expect repercussions.
@RalphCramden Actually I will deal with this laying down..........in the prone position!
 @flyroy Â
Range, windage, spin drift, trajectory, breath, squeeze.
Seems the NRA is doing much the same things as they criticize anti-gun organizations of doing: capitalizing on fear. They are also contributing to violent media content which they blame for gun violence instead of the gun itself. And a gun game for 4 year olds. This is one despertate group it would seem to me. I fear what gun lovers are going to do when they feel as desperate when sensible limits are placed on their fetish. Armed insurrection? Another Civil War.Â
 @peckishpete I'm going to agree with you on those points, Pete. I think they're valid.They're not a desperate group, though. Their membership and enrollment is booming. I can't even stand them, but, they're America's go-to organization for gun leadership which is why hypocrites like the city of Portland hire private citizens such as my NRA instructor to protect them, and why the state recognizes NRA firearm training on its CHL applications.But you should definitely fear an armed insurrection, given the vast majority of veterans out there who have experience in armed insurrection as it was applied against them, and who came home and purchased AR-15s and Glocks with which they were trained to and required to use, and who are now being called outlaws and "fetishist" by toothless goons in the left wing.You SHOULD worry about an armed insurrection because you can buy all KINDS of books about building IEDs at gunshows, protected under the FIRST amendment, and if the "insurrection" comes, that's what you're going to want to fear.
 @peckishpete A target range game is not COD gunning down people. Also at age 5 is when I started shooting guns with grandpa so what's the problem here? If it is well supervised then that age is fine. That is when I started teaching gun safety to my girls to insure they would be safe if they ever encountered a gun. I lock all mine up but mistakes happen and I wanted to make sure if I ever did have something not locked up they knew what to do and not do.
 @FreedomRocks  @peckishpete My dad stood behind me and helped me fire a Beretta 92s at the age of 5. First shot a 12 gauge at 6, and got my first rifle at 12 (SKS). Kids should be taught firearm safety and I recommend hunter's safety courses.Â
 @randomdude  @FreedomRocks  @peckishpete I dropped my Daisy one time when a bee stung me.. I must have been nine years old, and I can STILL remember my grandfather screaming at me for dropping my BB rifle. Loved that man dearly. He locked up his guns but he didn't have to on my account because I respected him too much to betray him.
 @FreedomRocks  @peckishpete Ya it is that why you can zoom aim and fire. Those games were made by the military to recruit teenagers.
 @peckishpete What is violent about target shooting on your mobile phone? Not to mention safety tips for beginners?
 @Julie  @peckishpete  @FreedomRocksÂ
If it was violent birds killing pigs then it would be okay.
@RalphCramden @Julie @peckishpete @FreedomRocks I seem to remember everyone playing a game in early 2002 including my liberal gun hating friends, it was called Bin Laden Liquors, and is still available to play free but nobody complained about it.
 @Julie  @peckishpete Nothing I just don't think Pete likes guns...
and some complained about telatubbies, these guys are nutz !