Utah lawmakers on Tuesday approved a measure that would make firing squad the method of execution in the state if authorities can't obtain increasingly scarce lethal injection drugs. 
 
 Before the 18-10 vote by the state Senate, Gov. Gary Herbert declined to say explicitly if he would sign the bill but noted that Utah is having trouble finding chemicals to kill death-row inmates. 
 
 "If those substances cannot be obtained, this proposal would make sure that those instructed to carry out the lawful order of the court and the carefully deliberated decision of the jury can do so," Herbert, a Republican, said in a statement. 
 
 There are a handful of inmates on Utah's death row who can already choose firing squad as their execution method because they were sentenced before 2004, when the state took that option away. The last prisoner to be executed by firing squad was Ronnie Lee Gardner in 2010. 
 
 Randy Gardner told NBC News that his brother — who was sentenced to death for killing a lawyer in court while facing charges for a previous murder — opted to be shot by his executioners because he believed it would stir opposition to capital punishment. 
 
 "It's not humane at all," Randy Gardner said of firing squads. "I got to see the four bullet wounds in my brother's chest after the execution and I could have put my hand in there. It's cruel and unusual punishment for sure." 
 
 Utah is one of several states that have turned to alternate execution procedures because pharmaceutical companies have stopped selling their products to prisons for capital punishment. Tennessee brought back the electric chair as a backup last year, but inmates have sued to stop it from being used. 
 
 "We have to have an option," Utah Rep. Paul Ray told reporters when he introduced the House version of the firing squad bill. 
 
 If the governor signs the bill, any attempt to use a firing squad is certain to come with a court battle. There are nine inmates on Utah's death row right now and no scheduled executions. 
 
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 A raft of executions across the country are on hold either because the states cannot find the drugs or because inmates are challenging the chemicals in the protocol. 
 
 The U.S. Supreme Court has agreed to hear an appeal next month that will determine if three states can continue to use a sedative called midazolam as the first agent in a three-drug cocktail despite claims it doesn't protect inmates from excruciating pain. 
 
 A poll commissioned by NBC News last spring, in the wake of a badly botched lethal injection in Oklahoma, found Americans are open to alternatives if the needle no longer becomes a viable way to carry out the death penalty. 
 
 Twenty percent of those polled expressed support for the gas chamber, 18 percent for the electric chair, 12 percent for the firing squad and 8 percent for hanging. 
 
 Last July, a federal appeals judge said lethal injections are a "misguided" effort to mask the brutality of executions and suggested a method most closely associated with the French Revolution would be better. 
 
 "The guillotine is probably best but seems inconsistent with our national ethos," Judge Alex Kozinski of the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in a dissent at the time. 
 
 "And the electric chair, hanging and the gas chamber are each subject to occasional mishaps," he continued. "The firing squad strikes me as the most promising. Eight or ten large-caliber rifle bullets fired at close range can inflict massive damage, causing instant death every time." 
 
 Utah has used the firing squad three times, most famously on Gary Gilmore, the subject of Norman Mailer's "The Executioner's Song," who was the first person put to death in the U.S. after the Supreme Court reinstated capital punishment in 1976. ||||| × Firing squad bill passes the Senate, heads to governor for signature 
 
 SALT LAKE CITY — The Senate passed a bill that would bring back the firing squad in Utah as a method of execution. 
 
 In an 18-10 vote, the Senate approved House Bill 11, sponsored by Rep. Paul Ray, R-Clearfield, which would bring the firing squad back as a backup method of execution, should the primary method of lethal injection be unavailable. 
 
 MORE: 3 inmates in Utah say they want to die by firing squad 
 
 The bill now goes to Gov. Gary Herbert for his signature or veto. In a statement to FOX 13, the governor’s office said: 
 
 “As a general practice, Gov. Herbert does not commit to action on a bill until he has reviewed the final version that has passed both the House and the Senate. He is, however, willing to discuss the principles by which he evaluates legislation. 
 
 “In the state of Utah, aggravated murder is a crime punishable by death. This is a sentence that was determined to be appropriate for crimes where a life was taken in an especially heinous and aggravated manner and was enacted by our Legislature with the support of their constituents. Accordingly, in those cases, as a state, we ask a jury to make the difficult decision to impose the death sentence. When a jury makes that decision and a judge signs a warrant enforcing that lawful decision, we have an obligation to make sure the order can be carried out. Our statute is clear that lethal injection is the method by which that will happen. We have no intent to change that. 
 
 “Our Department of Corrections is conscientious and dedicated to making sure that they are able to carry out the order in that manner. However, our state, as is the case with states around the country, is finding it increasingly difficult to obtain the substances required to perform a lethal injection. We are dedicated to pursuing all reasonable and legal options to obtain those substances to make sure that, when required, we are in a position to carry out this very serious sentence by lethal injection. However, if those substances cannot be obtained, this proposal would make sure that those instructed to carry out the lawful order of the court and the carefully deliberated decision of the jury can do so.” 
 
 The firing squad has been highly controversial in the Utah State Legislature. After it passed out of the Senate, lawmakers agreed to study whether or not to continue to have capital punishment in Utah. 
 
 According to the Death Penalty Information Center, Utah and Oklahoma are the only states with firing squad as a method of execution.
– Under a bill passed by Utah's state Senate yesterday, the state's executioners won't have to worry about a shortage of lethal injection drugs unless there's also a shortage of bullets. The bill, introduced by its Republican sponsor as a "backup," allows the use of firing squads when there's a drug shortage and was passed by an 18-10 vote, NBC News reports. Gov. Gary Herbert hasn't said whether he will sign the bill, though his office describes it as a move to "make sure that those instructed to carry out the lawful order of the court and the carefully deliberated decision of the jury can do so," reports Fox 13. Utah decided to phase out firing squads in 2004, but inmate Ronnie Lee Gardner, who had chosen the method when he was sentenced, was executed by firing squad in 2010, and there a few other death-row inmates sentenced before 2004 who can still opt for the method, according to the AP, which notes that the execution method has long been controversial in Utah: In 1879, Wallace Wilkerson faced a firing squad for killing a man over a game of cribbage, but they missed his heart and he wasn't pronounced dead until 27 minutes later. In Oklahoma, where state law allows firing squads only if lethal injection and electrocution are declared unconstitutional, lawmakers are looking into making the state the first one to execute people with nitrogen gas.