SALT LAKE CITY (AP) -- Guns made and kept in Utah would be exempt from federal regulations under a measure the Utah Senate gave its initial approval to Tuesday, despite concerns it could lead to a costly legal fight in a lean budget year.
Senate Bill 11 mirrors one signed into law in Montana last year that's intended to trigger a federal court battle.
Both are intended to allow guns made in their respective states to be exempt from rules on federal gun registration, background checks and dealer-licensing.
The goal is to circumvent federal authority over interstate commerce, which is the legal basis for most gun regulation in the United States.
In the process, it could lead to small arms dealers in the state operating with little to no oversight.
Sen. Margaret Dayton, R-Orem, said her bill is part of a broader effort to send a message to Congress that the federal government is overstepping its bounds.
"This is about our state's immutable right to establish control of our own rules and laws in our state," she said.
The Senate approved Dayton's bill 19-10. It needs one more formal vote before advancing to the House.
Efforts to bypass federal authority have been heard before by the U.S. Supreme Court.
In 2005, the court upheld federal regulation of marijuana in California, even if its use is limited to noncommercial purposes and is grown and used within a state's borders.
Legislative attorneys said Dayton's bill has a high probability of being found unconstitutional, but she said it's a fight worth having.
Senate Minority Leader Pat Jones, D-Holladay, isn't so sure.
Jones said that at a time Utah faces a $700 million budget shortfall, the state shouldn't waste resources fighting legal battles solely intended to send a message. Dayton acknowledged she didn't want anybody to violate federal gun laws under Utah's statute until Montana's law had worked its way through the courts.
That process has already begun.
The Department of Justice, in a brief filed last month, asked a judge to dismiss a lawsuit filed last year by gun advocates in Montana who argued the state should decide which rules, if any, would control the sale and purchase of guns and paraphernalia made in Montana.
The brief said the 1934 National Firearms Act was first put in place to regulate guns that could be "used readily and efficiently by criminals or gangsters."
Congress followed it in 1968 with a gun control act aimed at decreasing serious crime, and further strengthened its control over interstate commerce, the brief points out.
Those laws and others all mean to keep tabs on guns that easily pass between state borders, the Justice Department argued.
(Copyright 2010 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)
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