One month to the day after the mass shooting in Connecticut that the National Rifle Association blamed on violent media including video games, the organisation has released its own interactive shooting experience on the App Store. NRA: Practice Range is described as “the NRA’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 app has an age rating of 4+.
There are three shooting ranges: indoor, outdoor, and “skeet shoot” (whatever the hell that means). Each has three modes: “shakey”, “hot shot”, and “dead eye”. Aside from that, all you get are some settings, NRA info on things like legislation and when the hunting season is in the form of links that just take you to the NRA website, and a leaderboard.
Each loading screen has a little safety tip for those who find themselves incapable of staying away from guns altogether at least. Only point your gun in “safe” directions, stop shooting if your gun “malfunctions”, store your guns so “unauthorised” people can't get hold of them, etc.
In the indoor range, you get to shoot at moving coffin shapes, with red target spots where the head and heart of a person inside would be.
You can pay 69p to unlock an MK11.
Customer reviews have called it “disgraceful propaganda” and labelled the NRA “monsters”, although one just seems unhappy at the app's low quality. What do you think?