Kentucky lawmakers host CARR rally

Supporters of Senate Bill 13 rallied in Frankfort on January 25, 2024. The legislation would let police seek court orders to temporarily remove firearms from people thought to pose an 'immediate and present danger' of hurting themselves or others (WDRB photo).

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Kentucky lawmakers didn't take action this year on a bill that would let police seek court orders to temporarily take firearms from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.

Introduced in January, the bipartisan Senate Bill 13 failed to advance after it was assigned to the Senate's Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection Committee in March. The legislature returns Friday for its final two days.

The measure is "dead," its chief sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, told WDRB News last week. But he said the years-long effort to pass "crisis aversion and rights retention," or CARR, legislation in Kentucky took several steps forward.

More lawmakers back the bill than have said so publicly, said Westerfield, who has been outspoken about the challenges of passing gun-related legislation in the Republican-dominated General Assembly. The GOP holds supermajorities in both chambers.

"It would have been difficult even if this wasn't an election year," he said, "because the gun groups and Second Amendment advocacy groups do a great job of scaring legislators into not doing their job."

In an interview, he criticized lawmakers in his party who "haven't read the bill" and still oppose it, likening that to Democrats who aren't willing to even consider abortion legislation.

The effort to pass the CARR law during the 2024 legislative session was the first since last year's mass workplace shooting at Old National Bank in Louisville. In its aftermath, Kentucky Gov. Andy Beshear, a Democrat, called for "conversations" about such laws, which also are known as "red flag" laws.

Old National Bank employee Connor Sturgeon shot and killed five people at the downtown office. His family has said he was in treatment for anxiety and depression but that there were no "warning signs or indications he was capable of this shocking act."

Sturgeon bought an AR-15 from River City Firearms six days before the April 10 shooting, according to the Louisville Metro Police Department's investigative file. In a 911 call released after the shooting, Sturgeon's mother told a dispatcher that her son "didn't even own a gun."

Supporters of SB 13 say the legislation would make a difference. It 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.

Some lawmakers were vocal about the bill before it was filed and once it was introduced. Among the most outspoken was Rep. Savannah Maddox, R-Dry Ridge, who posted on X that it was an "ABSOLUTE DISGRACE" that SB 13 got a committee assignment on the anniversary of the General Assembly approving a concealed carry bill.

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

Westerfield, who is not running for reelection, said he's optimistic that legislators ultimately will pass the bill or a version of it. He noted that certain issues, like dating violence and medical marijuana legislation, took years to become law.

He acknowledged that some lawmakers will never be persuaded.

"But I think that the will of most voters — including most Republican voters — are for this. I think it will eventually find its way to the surface."

Whitney Austin, who was shot during a workplace shooting in Cincinnati in 2018, was among the high-profile advocates of SB 13. She said in a statement that the legislative session included bipartisan support for the bill, "thousands of emails" to lawmakers and the backing of Rick Sanders, police chief of Jeffersontown, and Mac Brown, former chair of the Kentucky Republican Party. 

"We’ve been leading this effort for four sessions since my shooting, and we will continue leading until CARR becomes law," she said. "We owe Kentuckians a solution that keeps all of us safe, gun owners included.”

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