Gun Enthusiasts Stage Benefit Shooting Event : Weapons: Half of the proceeds of target spree go to aid three sisters who were left motherless as a result of gang violence.

Five-year-old Sasha Graves, whose mother was slain five months ago in a drive-by shooting, squinted through the scope of a pellet rifle Friday, out on the range of the San Gabriel Valley Gun Club in Duarte.

Around her, nearly 200 assault-weapon enthusiasts had gathered for a morning of fire power and good will. Each had paid $25 for the chance to blast 20 clay targets into shards in a minute, using weapons with more force than the one Sasha was lifting. In the holiday spirit, they decided to give half the proceeds to Sasha and her two sisters, left motherless by the killing last July.

But Sasha, a petite kindergartner from Long Beach who is waiting for her two front teeth to grow in, seemed perplexed by the attention. She stared at the spent casings scattered at her feet. The rifle was too heavy for her to hold. Finally, she rubbed her eyes and said she didn’t want to do this any more.

“Oh, well,” said Mike McNulty, a leader of Gun Owners REACT Committee. He had thought it would be nice for the little girl to fire off a few rounds. “We tried.”

Five months ago, Sasha’s mother, Kentzie Pope, was hit in the back by a shotgun blast as she stood with several suspected gang members in front of her Long Beach apartment complex. Pope, 30, was eight months pregnant. She was kept alive during an emergency Cesarean section, and 20 minutes after the baby was delivered, she died.

The case caught the attention of the Anaheim-based REACT Committee, an aggressive, grass-roots group with a mailing list of 4,000 that calls itself the “Green Berets” of the pro-gun lobby.

McNulty, 44, an insurance broker from Corona, said his organization saw this as an opportunity to help crime victims and to make a point amid the growing tide of gun-control legislation.

“Symbolically, we have taken our guns here and turned them into plowshares,” he said. “We’ve turned them into something that benefits mankind instead of hurting it.”

They called their benefit “The Speed Challenge,” and the participants arrived early in trucks and off-road vehicles bearing such bumper stickers as “Criminals Prefer Unarmed Victims” and “Save a Child--Shoot a Drug Dealer.”

They came outfitted in aviator-frame sunglasses, earplugs, and an arsenal of now-banned assault rifles, including Uzis, AK-47s, AR-15s, and a gun called the Steyer Aug--Don Johnson’s weapon of choice on the television show “Miami Vice.” These owners’ assault weapons were legally purchased before the ban took effect last year, and the owners must register them by New Year’s Day.

For the $25 entry fee, each was given 40 rounds of ammunition and one minute to hit 20 clay targets from a distance of 25 yards. First place won a new semiautomatic Colt rifle. Last place got a turkey.

“This is my entertainment for today,” said Brian Boyd, a 28-year-old machinist who drove in from Riverside County with a Chinese-made SKS rifle. “The feeling of a firearm exploding in your hands. It’s power.”

About 1 p.m., McNulty showed up in his silver Lincoln Continental with Sasha, her 10-year-old sister Aiesha Butler, their aunt, Deirdre Pope, and her 12-year-old daughter. Four-month-old Keniesha, the child born as her mother lay dying, stayed home with a cold.

As if to explain their presence, Sasha twice told a photographer, “My mama got shot.”

Aiesha, a fifth-grader who plays the clarinet in her school band, chewed a stick of gum and looked embarrassed. Asked if the event made her feel better, worse or confused, she said, “It doesn’t make me feel anything.”

But Pope, 33, an elementary school teacher who has custody of her nieces, said she appreciated the help. Although she does not own a gun and said her sister didn’t either, she explained she was not against guns--just people who misuse them.

“These people here today are trying to do something nice,” she said, while blasts of gunfire echoed across the San Gabriel Mountains. “They’re just misunderstood.”