Just north across the Ohio River in Cincinnati, on the morning of Sept. 6, 2018, Whitney Austin walked into the Fifth Third Bank Building on Fountain Square. She was listening to music as she entered the building, so she didn’t hear the pleas from standers-by alerting her to an active shooter. Going through the revolving doors, she was sprayed with bullets.
She thought she was going to die. She reached for her phone to say goodbye to her husband. The shooter noticed and started shooting her again –she was shot a total of 12 times that day. She decided to play dead and placed herself at the bottom of the revolving door.
Cincinnati Police Officer Alphonso Staples saw Austin and helped her. She remembers making eye contact with him and felt determined to live. She told the emergency room nurses that day about her kids, and said that she needed to live.
Austin miraculously survived. But, in the moments after her shooting, she thought about the gun violence efforts she ignored and wondered what she could have done to prevent this from happening.
Now she has a second chance, and she’s using it to make a difference through Whitney/Strong. Her foundation focuses on responsible gun ownership and ending gun violence. The team at Whitney/Strong has been meeting with Kentucky legislators to introduce legislation that will allow firearm owners to turn over their firearms in a mental health crisis. Once the gun owner has received help and the crisis has passed, they can get their guns back.
One of the bill’s co-sponsors, Sen. Morgan McGarvey (D-Louisville), remembers going to Austin’s Louisville home after McGarvey mentioned to some friends that if she wanted to meet, he’d be happy to talk.
“I went over to her house literally the day she came home from the hospital, walked in, and her hair was still drying from when they just washed the blood out,” McGarvey said, “and she said ‘I want to get started on something.’”
What came out of that early meeting was new potential gun violence legislation in Kentucky.
Introducing CARR legislation to the Kentucky General Assembly
Just north of the Kentucky River, in the Kentucky Capitol Annex Building, Austin sits in a chair in Sen. Paul Hornback’s (R-Shelbyville) office. Hornback is one of the bill’s other co-sponsors, office. She talked to LINK nky about the new legislation and how it differs from other gun legislation.
“CARR (Crisis Aversion and Rights Retention) is a law to help gun owners going through a crisis moment,” Austin said. “It could be that the crisis moment is there intent on harming themselves, like suicide, or harming others whether that be mass violence like what happened to me, moments of domestic violence, really any violent incidence using a gun.”
The goal of the legislation is to get gun owners to access the mental health services they need to get better so that they can be reunited with their firearms.
“It’s really about helping gun owners,” Austin said. She noted that a goal of the organization and the legislation is to ensure it’s bipartisan.
“When we do focus on legislation, we only do it in a bipartisan way, and it has been that way from the very beginning,” Austin said.
McGarvey even thinks the bill is more than just a bipartisan bill.
“I think this bill enjoys wide support because it looks to solve a real problem by giving law enforcement a tool to temporarily remove firearms from people that are a danger to themselves or others,” he said.
The new legislation has evolved over the past few years, as McGarvey and Austin have received input from lawmakers and advocates on both sides of the political aisle.
“This is a bill we’ve worked on over the course of three years. Soon after I was shot, we began working on this, and over time it has evolved based upon the feedback we’ve received mainly from Kentucky lawmakers,” Austin said.
The lawmakers have detailed what will work for Kentucky and what won’t work for Kentucky. They are working on bringing on more co-sponsors and getting a hearing.
“Just like previous sessions, we have some feedback we need to take into consideration, and so it should be filed within the next couple of weeks,” Austin said.
“We have talked to prosecutors, defense attorneys, Sandy Hook Promise, mental health professionals, police officers, judges,” McGarvey said. “We talked to so many different groups that touch parts of this law. I’m trying to craft really good, common sense responsible legislation.”
Kentucky labeled as 40th worst gun state
Last month, Everytown, a gun group that seeks to end gun violence, labeled Kentucky the 40th worst gun state.
“Kentucky’s gun laws are among the weakest in the country,” according to Everytown. “No state law requires background checks on all firearm sales. This makes it easy for prohibited purchasers to buy any gun they’d like with no questions asked, by buying it from an unlicensed seller, like a person they meet online or at a gun show.”
Northern Kentucky Rep. Savannah Maddox (R-Dry Ridge) introduced House bills 122 and 124 this session. The former would lower the age of concealed carry from 21 to 18. The latter would banish gun-free zones.
“The purpose of this bill, in addition to postsecondary institutions, would be to allow people who are authorized in the Commonwealth of Kentucky to carry a firearm to do so in some of these places that were previously restricted,” Maddox said to LINK nky.
While Maddox’s bills seek to expand gun ownership and use, CARR will help those gun owners who are in crisis but want their guns returned. But, with any gun legislation comes fierce opposition to 2nd amendment rights, and Austin said that the CARR bill is a pro-2nd amendment bill.
“It is strengthening of the second amendment,” Austin said. “If you think about what we’re talking about here, crisis moments, if it is intent upon harming self, then that person could sadly die. If it is intent upon harming others, other people will die, and the gun owner will lose their 2nd Amendment rights forever. So, if you are truly on the side of the 2nd Amendment like we are — I’m a gun owner, my husband’s a gun owner, so many of our supporters at Whitney/Strong are gun owners — you want to be there and help them in their time of need, so you are strengthening the 2nd Amendment.”
McGarvey agreed, saying he’s tired of people saying there’s nothing we can do when we are doing nothing.
“I think this bill responsibly looks for solutions within input from everyone across the state, and I think it’s the step forward we need to take,” McGarvey said.
Similar legislation and other gun violence prevention groups
Austin was content with being a banker, but her life changed forever, and she said she knew she couldn’t go back. Now, as a professional advocate, she knows she needs to do as much as she can to prevent this from happening to other people.
“Along the way, I’ve met many talented and skilled advocates, and one group was Sandy Hook Promise,” Austin said. “Just like Whitney/Strong, Sandy Hook Promise is focused on helping people, and in this case helping gun owners.”
Sandy Hook Promise was founded by several family members of victims of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting that killed 26 people, 20 of whom were school-aged children.
“It was a perfect match, and we are where we are today because of their support and the support of all the Whitney/Strong members,” Austin said.
McGarvey noted there is similar legislation in Indiana, but this specific legislation was drafted for Kentucky and is unique because of how they’ve worked to make a bill that lawmakers want for their constituents. For example, they developed a part of the bill that allows a responsible party to take the firearm if a person is in a crisis. Instead of law enforcement, the gun would go to a trustworthy friend or family member until the crisis moment has passed.
“Examples like that have played out over the last three years that make what we’re doing really unique in comparison to those other laws out there that are trying to prevent crisis moments, too,” Austin said. “There is a lot of research out there that supports that these types of laws are effective at reducing suicide and mass violence.”
The group is also not just focused on reducing gun violence through legislation. They also offer evidence-based training in communities that see high amounts of gun violence. The group helps them take steps they can take to reduce gun violence, such as firearm safety, handling, safe storage, and teaching those to recognize the signs of suicide or violence, and even offering first aid training for gunshot victims.
“We are taking a very holistic approach because we don’t think this bill is the only thing that can make a difference,” Austin said.
If you are interested in helping the Whitney/Strong organization, you can find more information at whitneystrong.org.
