Look up videos of people shooting it. Watch videos on how to clean it and perform maintenance. You're going to have to shoot it, otherwise it's useless. Find a range near you. If being indoors is too much, find an outdoor range. If it's a brand new gun it especially needs to be shot. The wear will help it operate better. And you need to get used to shooting it as well as adjusting the sights so you can accurately aim.

I recommend watching Tacticool Girlfriend's videos on firearm safety in order to get a basic understanding of safety concepts. Safety is simple and intuitive, but it needs to be a constant concern. The number one thing I like to stress is awareness. Be always aware of where the muzzle is, be always aware of the condition (loaded? unloaded? safetied? chamber clear?) of your firearm, things like that. Even when you think you know your weapon is clear, check it before doing anything with it.

Here's a solid checklist of things to learn, I would say before going out to shoot with it. You may already know some or all of these things, so I apologize if this sounds condescending, but I'm also posting to record something for future people looking for resources:

• Learn how to field strip your weapon, as you would for cleaning
• Learn how your weapon functions. Not the terminology, short recoil vs. blowback vs. tilt-barrel vs. gas piston don't mean much, learn what each part does, if it should move, and how it all goes together. The good news is firearms are usually pretty single purpose in their design, I've found them to be fairly intuitive when you start going through them.
• Learn how to clean your weapon. Clean the bore from the rear, both for safety (as cleaning it from the rear requires disassembling it to the point it won't fire) and to avoid crown damage to the muzzle. Learn what cleaning compounds to use, bore brushes, etc.
• Learn what malfunctions to expect and how to clear them. Stovepipe jams, failure to extract, failure to feed (I hear 10/22s can have this with some of the aftermarket magazines), etc. Learn what to expect and how to handle it safely.
• Learn the legality. You have a rimfire, as opposed to a centerfire rifle, so some things that are legal for you to have for it might not be legal for your typical AR or AK. Learn where you can and can't take it, how you have to transport it, if you have to have it locked, etc.
• Get safety equipment. Eyes & ears and gloves if you need them. Again, a .22 isn't as big manly man big as an action hero desert eagle pistol or something, but that doesn't mean that it isn't dangerous, and that accidents with it (out of battery discharge, spall from your target, hot brass hitting you in the face, the rim from a cartridge splitting off) can't ruin your day. Get hearing protection for yourself, and a few spares for people who may join you, and eye protection as well.
• Learn what ammo your weapon takes. Not just the caliber, the cartridge. What grain of projectile, what kind of chamber pressure can it take. If you're learning to shoot on your grandpa's old Marlin 1895, can it take modern .45-70 or is it specced to the black powder charge .45-70? If you have an M1 Garand, don't feed it commercial .30-06 hunting loads, those will damage the op rod unless you tweak the gas plug. If you have a shotgun, well I don't know anything about shotguns, prolly ask someone who does. Point is, not all ammo is the same even if the caliber is the same. Do your research, it shouldn't take too long to find out if there's anything you should know.
• Get some range ammo and some defensive ammo, keep a reserve. This doesn't apply to everything, per se. A crowbar is probably better than your 10/22 or my 336XLR when it comes to home defense, but you should be practicing with your weapon regularly. Some people use the word train, I prefer practice.

You're right that ranges aren't always safe. Gun people are given to some chud proclivities, to word it more politely than most deserve, and one of those chud proclivities is to not give a fuck about the "china virus" and to have a nasty chip on their shoulder about it. Call ahead to an outdoor range, ask if they're open, ask what restrictions they have for quarantine, ask if you can stay safely distanced while shooting there. Not all ranges will be able to provide that, don't go to those. Don't go to an indoor range, pick an outdoor range. I say this as a hwhite person, but I was open with what I didn't know and what I was new to, the range staff were very welcoming to a novice. In my experience, gun folk are given to chud proclivities but there's a certain amount of respect for being straight-up with them. I mean, I didn't say I was a socialist, and I would recommend biting your tongue over talking about politics, but if someone is trying to pressure you into talking about politics, what worked for me has been to say that you disagree but you'd rather focus on the guns that you both agree over rather than the politics you don't. You run the risk of finding assholes, and of assholes finding you, try and disengage.

Also worth noting that you can usually shoot on BLM land. Bureau of Land Management, not to the cool BLM in this case. Check your local ordinances and if it's allowed, check to see if there are any safe spots, consider getting into contact with your local chapter of the Socialist Rifle Association if you've got one, they usually have a good read on the safe places to shoot.

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If you have an AR15 and like long boring prose, you could have a look through this.

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