The Trump administration is taking the first steps toward potentially reopening most of the Sonoran Desert National Monument to target shooting.
The Bureau of Land Management posted an advance notice Thursday in the Federal Register announcing it will evaluate amending the Arizona monument’s resource management plan to allow more recreational target shooting.
The move to start an environmental assessment and potential plan amendment is the latest in a yearslong bureaucratic spat between the Trump administration and former President Joe Biden that centers on gun rights, access to public lands, and the preservation of cultural and historical resources.
The issue has also been the source of litigation stretching back more than a decade, pitting groups as diverse as the National Rifle Association and the Sierra Club against each other over gun rights and cultural resource protection.
