Jeff, you are over-thinking this. Put your application in and make whatever you say as simple and as polite as you can. Then go join a 24-hour range, throw a small range bag in the trunk of your car with a few targets, safety glasses, ear muffs, etc. - and then keep the lowest possible profile.

There is a lot of truth to that old saw that no one should ever know you are carrying a gun until they are looking down the barrel of it.