A highly anticipated bipartisan effort to remove guns from people who are found to be at risk of hurting themselves or others was filed Thursday in the Kentucky Senate.

“It’s not a gun-grabbing bill,” Sen. David Yates, a Louisville Democrat and co-sponsor of the bill, said. “This respects the Second Amendment. It stays within the constitutional guidelines. This is crisis aversion. This is when someone that’s a gun-carrying citizen is in a mental health crisis, more than likely to do harm to themselves or others, to temporarily remove the gun.

“After someone that cares brings it forward, after it’s vetted by law enforcement officer, after it’s checked by the judge,” Yates said. “And then it’s just temporary. I mean, we trust the judge with custody of our children. Surely we can do something.”

Called the “crisis aversion and rights retention” act, or CARR, by its backers, the proposal was subject of a legislative hearing in December which showed many Republicans — who hold supermajorities in both chambers — have serious issues with the bill.

The bill’s primary sponsor, Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, emphasized this proposal isn’t about taking guns from law-abiding citizens.

“We want to step in temporarily to keep people safe,” he said at a news conference in the Capitol Annex Thursday. “We don’t want it to be abused. We want to do something responsible, constitutional, to keep people safe. That’s what CARR does.”

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According to the bill, the process would require a law enforcement officer to file a petition with the local district court explaining the “facts and circumstances” that support removing firearms from an individual.

The judge would then review the petition and determine if there is probable cause “to believe that the respondent presents an immediate and present danger of causing serious physical injury to self or others” if the individual has a gun.

If probable cause is found, “the court shall, without prior notice to the respondent, issue a temporary crisis aversion and rights retention order” and set an evidentiary hearing within six days to decide if the order should be continued.

Once the temporary order is granted, a law enforcement officer will serve notice to the individual and take custody of their guns. The entire process must be recorded, the law says.

The bill explicitly states that it does not give police the authority to search the home for any other purpose than removing firearms, unless authorized by a search warrant to do more.

If the individual does not surrender all their guns, they may be found in contempt of court and police could seek a search warrant for the “limited purpose of taking possession” of firearms.

The bill operates from the presumption that the person subject to the removal order has a right to their weapons and the police have the burden to prove otherwise.

“We’re talking about people who have not yet broken the law,” Westerfield said. “I think the bar should be higher, and so we’ve made the bar higher.”

President Pro Tempore David Givens, R-Greensburg, attended the rally and press conference where Westerfield, Yates and other backers of the bill spoke. Givens said he had not yet read the bill that would go on to be filed a couple hours later, but he was supportive of the ongoing conversation.

“Let me state clearly that I am a supporter of Second Amendment rights. I’m also a supporter of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness,” Givens said to reporters afterward. “Finding that balance between those places is what this legislation has to be geared toward.

“I do sense more open minds than ever before about wading into this difficult space and trying to find the balance in those times of mental health crisis for us to assist someone in getting through it without damaging themselves or hurting someone in their circle.”

Westerfield, who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, said he hopes the bill is assigned to his committee, though it could also be assigned to Veterans, Military Affairs and Public Protection. Westerfield is in his last legislative session; he is not seeking reelection this November.

“So at the end of the day, where it goes doesn’t matter as much as, is whether it goes once it gets there,” Westerfield said.