Credit: angier-fox.photoshelter.com

Recreational target shooters call it “trigger trash” — tons and tons of refrigerators, car parts, televisions, sofas, bowling pins and other unwanted junk that shooters haul onto pristine federal woodlands and shred with gunfire for sheer enjoyment.

The abuses are scarring forest lands from the Carolinas to the Pacific Northwest. An emergency halt to target shooting had to be issued for the Croatan National Forest, in North Carolina, after hundreds of complaints from alarmed visitors. Forest Service records show an increasing raft of violations, like shooting from cars and shooting in campgrounds.

The problem keeps growing, with hikers and conservationists warning that virtual free-fire zones threaten not only national forests but also millions of multiple-use Western acres overseen by the Bureau of Land Management, where there are too few enforcement officers. Citizens describe scenes resembling war zones, as volleys of gunfire roll across the mountains.

It’s bad enough that federal crews have to clean […]