It doesn't look like the National Rifle Association is making many friends this week. A number of US politicians have spoken out against the organisation's release of an iOS app that teaches players from the age of 4 to use firearms.The
NRA: Practice Range app,
which was first reported yesterday, was released as a free 'educational' game that taught gun safety and offered players the chance to use Colt pistols and MK11 sniper rifles.
Apple has changed the rating of the app to 12+, after calls from Senator Charles Schumer to raise it from its previous 4+ rating to 17+. "The NRA has acted in an unbelievably hypocritical fashion by blaming the nation’s gun violence on video games and movies, then coming out with a game for children featuring assault weapons," he said. "Apple should not facilitate children using it."
New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg added that the NRA's actions were "the height of hypocrisy... If you remember the head of the NRA's speech on television, he blamed violent children's games for causing things like the terrible tragedy in Connecticut," Bloomberg said.
And he wasn't wrong - the
NRA did squarely place the blame at the door of violent media such as games, movies and music.
Source:
CBS New York