The Democratic sponsor of a bill to hold manufacturers and sellers of assault-style weapons liable for the violence that occurs with the guns says he’s found a way around a conflict with federal law.

Senate President John Morse, D-Colorado Springs, plans to introduce his bill Wednesday, but gave an overview the day before.

Critics immediately questioned whether Morse’s bill would result in gun dealers essentially having to profile firearms purchasers based upon their appearance.

Under the bill, manufacturers and sellers of semi-automatic rifles could be sued for violent acts committed with the guns if they “negligently entrusted” the assault-style weapon to someone whom they “reasonably should have known might use the weapon” to cause harm. Under the bill, manufacturers and sellers would have to “use the highest degree of care” in selling, storing or transferring weapons.

The bill exempts handguns, shotguns and bolt-action rifles.

A federal law, the Protection of Lawful Commerce in Arms Act of 2005, already prohibits lawsuits against gun makers and dealers for crimes committed with their products. However, Morse said the federal law still requires that manufacturers and sellers of guns follow state laws in selling their weapons.

And under his bill, state law would require the “highest degree of care” in selling the guns.

“We want to make sure we don’t have legal challenges to this, either with respect to the Second Amendment or with respect to a violation of federal law,” Morse said. “We searched for a way and we managed to find it.”

But how would the “highest degree of care” be defined?

“Establishing the highest degree of care will be up to the jury,” Morse said.

He offered an example.

“When someone walks into a gun shop wearing an ‘I love Osama bin Laden’ T-shirt and orders 15 AR-15s,” Morse said, “you have not in my view met the standard. That’s not to say you can’t sell to that person, it’s to say that you’re going to have to do some digging to figure out what they’re really up to.”

Sen. Greg Brophy, R-Wray, a staunch gun rights activist, bluntly called Morse’s example “racist” and mocked the bill generally.

“I think this bill represents John Morse’s white flag of surrender to out-and-out ban the sale of assault weapons in Colorado, which the rest of his extreme caucus found too extreme,” Brophy said. “He can’t do what he wants to do, but he’s got to introduce something because he said would.”

It’s unclear whether there is even enough Democratic support to pass Morse’s proposal, which will be roundly opposed by Republicans.

Morse denied that the bill would result in profiling by gun sellers and also rejected notions that his bill was a de facto ban on the sale of assault-style weapons, but he added, “If gun (stores) stopped selling this kind of weapon, I would be OK with that because they are incredibly dangerous and have no business on our streets or in our forests.”

Tim Hoover: 303-954-1626, thoover@denverpost.com or twitter.com/timhoover