Poll: GOP voters support Kentucky red flag bill

FRANKFORT, Ky. (WDRB) – More than 70% of Republican voters polled this winter backed a bill that would let police temporarily take guns from people deemed in “crisis,” according to data released Friday by the legislation’s supporters.

Senate Bill 13 – dubbed a “Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention” measure – has not gotten a hearing during the General Assembly session now in its final two days.

“I ask yet again for our lawmakers to meet us in a place of common ground and to pass CARR,” mass shooting survivor Whitney Austin said during a rally in the state capitol rotunda. “Kentuckians across the state ask that as well.”

The polling data was revealed as Austin joined Sens. Whitney Westerfield (R-Fruit Hill) and David Yates (D-Louisville) in calling on lawmakers in the Republican-controlled legislature to act on the bill or a version of it in the future.

The UpONE Insights firm conducted the polling January 17-23 among 600 GOP primary voters in Kentucky, according to the methodology shared with reporters. The cell phone survey had a margin of error of +/- 4 percentage points.

It asked two questions:

“Do you think Kentucky lawmakers should work to prevent gun violence, including working to keep Kentuckians going through a mental health crisis from harming themselves or others?”
“I'd like to read you a potential proposal being discussed by Kentucky elected officials, and please tell me whether you would support or oppose it. A new Kentucky law, called Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention, would permit Kentucky law enforcement to temporarily transfer firearms from a person who does present a danger to others or themselves.”

That proposal, SB 13, was filed several days later.

The January survey found that 72% of the voters polled were in favor of the proposal outlined in the second question. Austin described that as an “overwhelming margin.”

Westerfield, who is not seeking reelection, has said that more lawmakers back the bill than will admit publicly. He also has been candid about the difficulties and optics of moving gun-related bills in the General Assembly, where the GOP has supermajorities in both chambers.

“That bill is the approach we’ve got to take,” Westerfield, chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee, said Friday. “And if there are other solutions from those that oppose this, please, instead of making noise, instead of scaring the legislature into doing something or not doing something, come to the table and tell us what your solution should be. Otherwise get behind CARR.”

This year’s version would let police file petitions in district court showing why they're asking a judge to remove the guns. The judge then would review the petition and rule whether there are reasonable grounds to issue an order seizing the weapons.

The owner of the firearms wouldn't be notified beforehand but would be involved in the next step: A hearing within the next six days that would decide whether a longer order should be in place for up to 90 days.

That three-month order would have to find that a gun owner is a danger to him- or herself or others. Besides ordering law enforcement agencies to hold the weapons, no new purchases could be made until the order expires.

The order could be challenged every 45 days. It also could be extended after 90 days.

The bill also gives people whose guns are temporarily seized a "rebuttable presumption" that the weapons must be returned — meaning that the burden of proof is on the police.

Introduced in late January, SB 13 was assigned to the Senate's Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee in March but didn’t get a hearing. The committee’s chair, Sen. Rick Girdler (R-Somerset), did not return a message on his cell phone left Thursday about the bill.

Among the bill’s supporters were Rick Sanders, former state police commissioner under GOP Gov. Matt Bevin and the current Jeffersontown police chief, and Mac Brown, former chair of the Kentucky Republican Party.

But other Republicans resisted the measure and earlier versions of it. Westerfield met with pushback from some members of his own party when he introduced a draft last December.

"Fundamentally, this bill takes away a constitutional right from a citizen based on the prediction they might commit a crime in the future," said Rep. Jason Nemes (R-Middletown) at the time. "This person has done nothing wrong.”

The National Rifle Association's Institute for Legislative Action labeled the bill an “attack on constitutional rights" and called Westerfield an "anti-gun Republican.”