While gun ownership is a constitutional right, shooting on public land is a privilege. Gun owners who enjoy that privilege and would like to see it continue should make every effort to show that littering does not go hand-in-hand with recreational shooting.

And, they should demonstrate that target practice can happen safely amid the many other uses people have for the park.

Ranchers with grazing permits have spoken of cows being shot and an overall change in the number of shooters and the kind of weaponry being used. The trend has moved from a small number of people using .22 caliber and small rifles in the park, to a larger number of people firing higher caliber and semi-automatic weapons.

“It’s no longer your standard dad teaching his kid to use a .22,” said John Kurtz, an outdoor recreation planner with the U.S. Bureau of Land Management. “And along with that shift are the inherent dangers. How far can a bullet travel and how much damage can it do?”

With the increasing use of the park, many of the safe places to shoot — places with a backstop to keep bullets from flying over a rise toward an unsuspecting ATV rider or rancher — are taken by mid-morning, Kurtz said. That doesn’t stop latecomers from setting up target practice on a flat stretch of land.