Hunting season is just around the corner, which means aspiring hunters nationwide are looking for hunter education courses near them to satisfy regulations in order to buy their first hunting license. This is a good time to remind everyone that NRA Hunter Education Online is free and available anytime in 14 states thanks to the National Rifle Association.
That’s right, hunters in at least 14 states can thank the NRA for providing, free of charge, an online hunter education course that satisfies not only state regulations but enables those states to claim P-R matching funds.
The hunter ed. machine run by states since at least 1949 has reliably churned out about 550,000 folks certified to buy a hunting license every year for quite some time, whether they be young, aspiring hunters or experienced folks who suddenly learn they need hunter ed. to buy a license in a state where they have never previously hunted. But folks’ attitudes toward learning, not to mention their patience for rigid curriculums has changed. Where not long ago most aspiring hunters sought out hunter ed. in person, in 2022, almost 300,000 people took it online.
In this market the NRA, the same organization that built the first hunter ed. course in 1949, saw a tremendous opportunity to help American hunters. By 2017, the organization had spent a million bucks developing a learning management system to train firearm instructors, so it spent more money, tuned that LMS to accommodate hunters’ needs then delivered NRA Hunter Education Online. Offered at no charge, the course has since been taken by at least 150,000 people and saved American hunters at least $2.5 million as compared to fees associated with other online hunter ed. providers. What’s more, because our course is free, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service in 2019 ruled that state agencies may claim a dollar value of the NRA course as in-kind matching dollars to access federal grant money in the Pittman-Robertson Act.
Talk about lowering barriers to entry. NRA Hunter Education goes a long way toward bolstering hunter recruitment. No longer must a hunter find a course near him, offered on dates and at times suitable to him then attend every session without fail. The NRA material offered in 14 states is available 24/7, so it may be taken anytime, day or night, and stopped or started at a student’s pace. It’s free, removing any cost-prohibitive barrier imposed by commercial courses offered by 36 states. The course also makes it easier for experienced hunters to revisit material as needed when he or she feels the need to brush up on personal knowledge or find material to steer toward a protégé.
States that offer NRA Hunter Ed Online free include Alabama, Connecticut, Florida, Kansas, Kentucky, New Mexico, North Carolina, Oklahoma, Oregon, Pennsylvania, South Dakota, Tennessee, Texas and West Virginia. South Dakota is the most recent state to certify our course, doing so this spring. Florida was the first on board, in 2017. Additionally, tribal members of the Native American Fish and Wildlife Society (NAFWS) are also using the course.
Peter Churchbourne, managing director of NRA Hunting, explains that anyone can become certified regardless of state residence because North Carolina and Oklahoma will fully certify nonresidents with a printable hunter ed. card that is good in all 50 states. Additionally, he says, “Our technology is currently undoing a massive update to make it easier for users to load the course on slower Internet speeds, which will allow us to make modifications and updates more easily.” Also, he said, “By the summer of 2025 the NRA’s online course will have a 100-percent Spanish option.”
The NRA is always looking for more partners. It is willing to tailor its course to the needs of any state and give it away, no strings attached, unlike some commercial vendors who will do the same only for a price. In for-profit states students pay $25-$35 per course.
This all serves as a reminder to our community at the dawn of another hunting season that the NRA serves hunters. But you wouldn’t know that by the content of some online hunting sites. One outdoor/hunting/fishing outlet, for instance, recently published an article about online hunter ed. that suggested every entity in the online hunter ed. business is there to make a profit. Stories and blog posts slamming organizations for making a profit off hunter ed. online lump in the NRA with the for-profit companies. But that simply does not tell the whole story. It presents the impression that anyone taking hunter ed. online is putting money in the pockets of commercial enterprises … so maybe we should seek out hunter ed. in person. The problem with that is there are now only about 45,000 hunter ed. instructors nationwide, per the IHEA, which makes an in-person class in close proximity to an aspiring hunter—particularly one that fits within an individual’s personal schedule—difficult to find.
NRA Hunter Education Online. It’s easy. It’s free. You can’t beat that. Visit NRAHE.org to see if you live in one of the 14 states that offer it.
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