Utah joins the growing list of state telling feds hands off our guns and ammo
On Friday, Utah Governor Gary Herbert finally signed into law SB11, the Utah State-Made Firearms Protection Act. The bill passed both the House and the Senate, then sat on Herbert’s desk for 10 days while the governor debated whether he would sign or veto the bill. Had the governor neither signed nor vetoed the bill by Saturday, it would have automatically gone into effect as law. Herbert said the decision to sign came after careful review of the potential fallout from the controversial legislation.
“There are times when the state needs to push back against continued encroachment from the federal government. Sending the message that we will stand up for a proper balance between the state and federal government is a good thing,” the governor said. “But in these challenging economic times, when Utah families continue to struggle and our Legislature must account for every dollar it spends, we must also be thoughtful about the cost of that message.”
SB11 creates statute that allows guns and ammunition manufactured and sold in Utah to be regulated by the state of Utah, not by the federal government. At its heart, SB11 is a states’ rights bill, not a weapons bill. It lashes out at the federal government and attempts to regain some of the control and power the federal government has usurped from the states through overreaching use of the Interstate Commerce Clause.
Senator Margaret Dayton, the bill’s sponsor, said the bill is all about control. But asserting control will likely come with a constitutional challenge. The bill was modeled after Montana’s Firearms Freedom Act, which passed last year, and has since gone into litigation. Litigation was brought against the federal government by a private group who asserts that current interpretation of constitutional law, as it regards to the Interstate Commerce Clause, is incorrect. The federal government has filed a motion to dismiss the matter, which is awaiting a hearing. Tennessee is the only other state that has adopted a similar law.
Governor Herbert has consulted with the state Attorney General and other legal advisers, who assured him that the state can take a stand on this issue of controlling intrastate commerce without incurring onerous legal expenses.
“The attorney general has assured me that, should a legal challenge be filed against the state, his office can take a variety of actions to ensure the defense of this legislation will have a minimal cost to the people of Utah,” said Herbert. “I am satisfied that Utah can stand confidently with other states that are taking a stand against the federal government’s overreach in this area.”
