Miami ? A South Florida Republican said it was a mistake to shoot at a target with the initials of the Democratic congresswoman he is trying to unseat.

Candidate Robert Lowry made a brief statement to a local newspaper but refused to speak further Friday about the incident, which happened Tuesday during a weekly GOP meeting held at a gun range.

Organizer Ed Napolitano defended the gathering, as well as the use of targets that appeared to be gunmen with traditional Arab head scarves.

“That’s our right,” said Napolitano. “If we want to shoot at targets that look like that, we’re going to go ahead and do that.”

Lowry told the South Florida Sun Sentinel that shooting at a target with the letters “DWS” — a not-so-veiled reference to Democratic U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz — was a “joke,” but then said it “was a mistake.”