The Purpose

Welcome to the Hunter Education & Firearm Safety Training home page!

I’m Wayne Schmeling and I am the lead instructor for the courses offered on this site.  I am a Minnesota Department of Natural Resources certified hunter education and firearm safety training instructor.

This site is intended to enhance and improve the experience of the students in the courses I teach as well as promote the hunting and shooting sports, the ethics of our outdoors heritage, and the conservation and preservation of our natural resources.

Here’s a few quick instructions for navigating this site:

• Pages:  Above the picture at the top of the page you will find links to the pages that describe the courses.  Just click on a title to view that page.
• The Calendar:  Well, it’s a calendar, but it also highlights the days I have made posts to this site.  You can click on a highlighted day to see the posts for that day.  Plus, it’s there to remind you it’s always hunting and shooting season somewhere!
• Notes from the Teacher:  The most recent posts I have made to the Homework and Other Useful Stuff categories.  You can click on the individual posts there.
• Homework and Other Useful Stuff:  Click on a category to find the posts I have made to comment on and assist with the course work and homework for that category, listed from most recent to oldest.
• Comments or Questions:  You can send me a comment or question to any page or post on this site.  If I think it is useful to the rest of the community using this site I will attach your comment or question with my answer to the page or post.  Just look for the comment link in every page or post to give us your input!
• Hunting, Shooting, Conservation and Preservation:  This is a list of links to helpful and interesting sites related to the hunting and shooting sports.  Click on them and check them out!
• Older Notes and Stuff:  This is an archive that files all of the older posts by the month.  You can view a month at a time.
• Hunt It Up:  Like Sadie the duck dog, explore, check it out, hunt it up, and get all your ducks in a row!

The purpose of Minnesota’s Firearms Safety Hunter Education Course is:

• to prevent firearms and hunting accidents;
• to ensure the future of hunting and shooting sports through compliance with laws, regulations, and ethics;
• to emphasize the importance of wildlife management, laws, and regulations so that students will obtain a better understanding of their obligations to the resources, landowners, other hunters, and themselves.