Now children as old as 4 years old can experience the joys of weaponry with the new NRA: Practice Shooting app, now available for all. This app includes gun safety tips, different state gun laws, and various “educational materials.” The app itself is free with an option to “upgrade” your various weapon for $0.99. And really, the only part of this that makes this a game is just a point-and-shoot gun range. This really isn’t a political statement of any sort but age 4… 4?!

In fairness, most media outlets are focusing on the fact that the age range for the app is quite low, and not much else. I’ve heard the argument be made that this was not an intentional choice made by the NRA to have that age on the app store, but rather a function of the content in the game itself when submitting to the store. It isn’t a “violent” app in the sense that you are not shooting live targets, and there is no horror content or bad language. Which, if that is the case, then (at least) it exposes a flaw in the submission process to Apple. Many stories have risen stating a lot of folks learned to shoot quite young, usually depending on which state you were born in. And while I would think gun safety education would be of the utmost importance if you had firearms in the house, children or not, this app probably isn’t the way to do it.

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