NRA: Practice Range educational game now available on iOS

NRA: Practice Range, a National Rifle Association-licensed educational game for mobile devices, launched yesterday on iOS.

Targeted to players aged 4 and up, NRA: Practice Range focuses primarily on safety, training and education regarding firearms, according to the game's description on the iTunes App Store. Interstitial screens offer instruction such as, "Always keep the gun pointed in a safe direction."

The app includes a first-person shooter, advertised as having three "immersive shooting ranges," that allows players to fire virtual versions of real guns — a Colt pistol and MK11 sniper rifle are available as in-app purchases for $0.99 each — at non-human practice targets.

NRA: Practice Range also functions as a way for the NRA to provide information to its constituents. The app "puts the NRA's broad scope of resources in the palm of your hand" with relevant news, updates on legislation concerning firearms and educational information such as the ways in which gun laws vary from state to state.

NRA: Practice Range was developed by MEDL Mobile, whose other iOS apps include Britannica Kids: US Presidents, which the company calls "a fun and educational meet-and-greet with the 44 U.S. presidents."

The game's release comes as the NRA continues to blame violent video games, among other media and societal ills, for incidents such as the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., last month, in which 27 people, mostly children, were shot and killed.