A great way to get introduced to learning more about guns safely is to prepare and test for your state’s hunter education certificate. You can get started by going to the Today’s Hunter website and following the online materials for your state. Follow this up with the online practice exam and then an online (for real) exam which qualifies you to attend the one day classroom course for your actual hunter education certificate.

If you live in Nevada like I do the online exam is $15. After passing and printing out the online certificate you can then go to the Nevada Department of Wildlife website to register for an all day Hunter Ed class (9am – 5pm) where I had to pay $5. It’s a good idea to bring some bottled water or drinks with you. We did have an hour lunch break, and I finished the written test a little early getting done a little after 4pm. There were kids there too, but the kids were admonished not to help their dads with the questions!

After that, it’s just a matter of registering for an actual hunter’s license. I did learn a lot of great stuff in class, but more interestingly, the instructor told us that the number of hunting licenses are what attract federal funding to the state for wildlife management and conservation. If more people get licensed to hunt, more federal funds get allocated to the state. So, even if you’re not a hunter, but would still like to support wildlife conservation, ironically, getting a hunting license is a great way to do it!