Im agreeable that people should wish to be knowledgeable in activities they participate in but this putting the cart before the horse. Usually folks dont dive head long into a new hobby. They try it a few times and see if it is for them. Hunters safety is a barrier to even trying. I cant think of many other leisure pursuits which require training before you can even try. No wonder there are fewer hunting license sales.
Whatever the safety merits, hunters safety does have the unintended consequence of excluding huge numbers of people from trying hunting. In some instances this is probably good. In the case of a 30 something professional introduced to sporting clays at a corporate outing who would now like to have a go at some dovesI dont think so.
Many leisure activities are much more dangerous than hunting and we dont require mandatory training. I guess because firearms are involved so we lose perspective and roll over.
