Kentucky has no extreme risk protection order statute. No Kentucky procedure lets a family member, roommate, doctor, or police officer petition a court...
Reviewed by Will Luker, Founder of CCW Hub. USCCA Training Counselor, USCCA Certified Instructor, NRA Certified Instructor, Law Enforcement.
Kentucky has no extreme risk protection order statute. No Kentucky procedure lets a family member, roommate, doctor, or police officer petition a court for an order that temporarily strips a person of firearms because that person is judged dangerous, so there is no petition form, hearing standard, surrender deadline, or return process to describe.
If you have read that Kentucky "has a red flag law," treat that as wrong until someone can point to a statute number. The Legislative Research Commission publishes the current text of every KRS section at apps.legislature.ky.gov, which settles the question.
Kentucky statute runs the other way. KRS 237.104(1) says that no person, unit of government, or governmental organization may, during a declared disaster or emergency under KRS Chapter 39A "or at any other time," revoke, suspend, limit the use of, or otherwise impair the validity of any person's right to purchase, transfer, loan, own, possess, carry, or use a firearm, ammunition, or any deadly weapon, and KRS 237.104(2) bars taking, seizing, confiscating, or impounding those items. Subsection (3) carves out a short list: the section does not protect a person forbidden to possess a firearm under KRS 527.040 or under federal law, a person violating KRS 527.020, a person holding a stolen firearm, or a person using a weapon in a separate criminal or KRS Chapter 150 offense. KRS 527.020 is Kentucky's carrying-a-concealed-deadly-weapon offense, a Class A misdemeanor unless the defendant has a previous felony conviction in which a deadly weapon was possessed, used, or displayed, in which case it is a Class D felony. Every exception in that list is keyed to prohibited status or to a crime, none to risk.
Local government cannot fill the gap. KRS 65.870(1) bars every city, county, urban-county or charter county government, special district, and local public or quasi-public agency from occupying any part of the field of firearm or ammunition regulation, KRS 65.870(2) voids conflicting ordinances and rules, and KRS 65.870(4) lets an adversely affected person or organization sue.
Legislative Research Commission records show proposals running both directions, none in the KRS. In the 2026 regular session, HB 77 would prohibit ex parte orders restricting a person's ability to possess firearms and ammunition, and would amend KRS 403.730 and 456.040 to bar emergency protective orders and temporary interpersonal protective orders from doing so. It states it may be cited as the Red Flag Repeal Act of 2026. HB 125 runs the other way, creating KRS Chapter 527 offenses of firearm possession by a convicted domestic abuser and by the subject of a domestic violence protective order and requiring surrender of firearms. Both were introduced January 7, 2026 and referred to House Judiciary January 14, 2026. The 2025 session index has a heading for "Crisis aversion and rights retention order, possession, prohibition," listing Senate Bill 235. These are introduced bills, not law. That a surrender requirement had to be proposed confirms current law does not impose one.
No Kentucky statute defines "extreme risk protection order," so what follows is a working definition, not Kentucky law. Where such orders exist, they bar a named person from possessing or buying firearms for a fixed period on a judicial finding of danger, and they reach the firearms themselves. Kentucky has neither.
Key definitions (KRS 403.720). "Order of protection" means an emergency protective order or a domestic violence order. Under KRS 403.720(2)(a), "domestic violence and abuse" means physical injury, serious physical injury, stalking, sexual assault, strangulation, assault, or the infliction of fear of imminent physical injury, serious physical injury, sexual assault, strangulation, or assault, between family members or members of an unmarried couple. Read the two branches separately: the completed-conduct branch includes stalking and the fear-of-imminent branch does not. "Family member" reaches a spouse or former spouse, grandparent, grandchild, parent, adult sibling, child, or stepchild; "member of an unmarried couple" reaches couples with a child in common and those who live together or formerly did.
Who may seek one. KRS 403.750(1) allows any family member or member of an unmarried couple to file for protection, whether or not a divorce or custody action exists, and KRS 403.750(3) lets a court hearing a dissolution, custody, or visitation case issue one on a verified motion. The order itself issues under KRS 403.740; read that section for its terms, duration, and renewal rules, which govern how long any firearm consequence lasts.
Violating an order. KRS 403.763(1) makes violation of an order of protection, after service or notice, both contempt of court and a criminal offense, and once one proceeding starts the other cannot be brought regardless of outcome. Under KRS 403.763(4), the crime is intentionally violating the order after service or notice. Violation of an order of protection is a Class A misdemeanor, and a Class D felony where the person has two or more previous convictions under that subsection or under KRS 456.180(4)(a), 508.155, or 510.037 within the last five years and the third or subsequent violation involves the use or attempted use of physical force or the threat of physical harm. The protected person need not be the same across violations.
Kentucky runs a second protective-order track in KRS Chapter 456, for dating-relationship, stalking, and sexual assault victims who are not family members or members of an unmarried couple. Those sections sit outside the source set used here, so their mechanics are out of scope, but two consequences follow from statutes quoted above. First, KRS 237.110(13)(k) suspends a Kentucky carry license only for an order issued "pursuant to the provisions of KRS Chapter 403," so an interpersonal protective order does not by itself cost the license. Second, 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(32) defines "intimate partner" as a spouse, a former spouse, a parent of a child of the person, or a person who cohabitates or has cohabited with the person, which does not reach a dating partner as such, so an interpersonal protective order resting on a dating relationship alone may fall outside 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8).
A Kentucky protective order does not itself direct a respondent to hand over firearms. The prohibition comes from 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), which makes it unlawful to possess, ship, transport, or receive firearms or ammunition in or affecting interstate commerce while subject to a court order that (A) issued after a hearing of which the person had actual notice and at which the person had an opportunity to participate, (B) restrains the person from harassing, stalking, or threatening an intimate partner or a child of that partner or person, or from other conduct placing an intimate partner in reasonable fear of bodily injury, and (C) either finds that the person is a credible threat to that partner's or child's physical safety or explicitly prohibits the use, attempted use, or threatened use of physical force against them that would reasonably be expected to cause bodily injury. Subparagraph (A) matters: an order entered without such a hearing does not satisfy it, so an emergency order and a final order are not interchangeable federally.
18 U.S.C. 922(g)(9) applies the same ban to anyone convicted in any court of a misdemeanor crime of domestic violence. Under 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33)(A), that means a misdemeanor with an element of the use or attempted use of physical force, or the threatened use of a deadly weapon, committed by a person in a listed domestic relationship to the victim: a current or former spouse, a parent or guardian, a person sharing a child in common, a current or former cohabitant, or a current or recent former dating partner. Section 921(a)(33)(B)(i) adds that the conviction does not count unless the person had counsel or knowingly and intelligently waived it, and, where a jury trial was available, the case was tried to a jury or that right was waived. Separately, 18 U.S.C. 921(a)(33)(C) lets a person with not more than one dating-relationship conviction, not otherwise prohibited, shed the disqualification once five years have elapsed from the later of the judgment of conviction or completion of any custodial or supervisory sentence, absent a qualifying later conviction. That restoration is unavailable where the victim was a spouse or former spouse, parent, guardian, a person sharing a child in common, a cohabitant or former cohabitant, or a similarly situated person.
The mirror-image transfer bans are 18 U.S.C. 922(d)(8) and (d)(9), barring sale or disposition of a firearm or ammunition to a person you know or have reasonable cause to believe is in either category. Penalty: under 18 U.S.C. 924(a)(8), whoever knowingly violates subsection (d) or (g) of section 922 shall be fined, imprisoned for not more than 15 years, or both.
The carry license goes. KRS 237.110(13)(k) provides that when a domestic violence order or emergency protective order issues under KRS Chapter 403 against a license holder, the holder shall surrender the license to the court or to the serving officer, and the license stays suspended until the order terminates or the issuing judge ends the suspension in writing and returns the license on proper motion. On the same conditions, a peace officer under such an order may not carry concealed off duty, the provisions of KRS 527.020 notwithstanding. That suspends the license, not possession. Under KRS 237.118(3)(b), a KRS reference to a license issued under KRS 237.110 also reaches a provisional license under KRS 237.118, which authorizes licensing of applicants aged 18 to 20 effective July 15, 2026, so the same rule reaches that track. Screening runs the other side of the same rule: KRS 237.110(4)(a) bars issuance to anyone prohibited under 18 U.S.C. 922(g) or 922(n), and KRS 237.110(3) requires a state records check plus a NICS query. Permitless carry is no workaround: KRS 237.109, effective June 27, 2019, extends only to persons 21 or older who are "otherwise able to lawfully possess a firearm," and KRS 237.109(2) says nothing in it allows carry where federal law prohibits it.
Notice to the petitioner. KRS 237.100(1) directs the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, on notice that a person barred under 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(g)(8) has purchased or attempted to purchase a firearm, to make a reasonable effort to notify the petitioner who obtained the domestic violence order under KRS 403.740. KRS 237.100(2) limits that to a petitioner whose order issued or reissued on or after July 15, 2002 and who has requested notification. An older provision, KRS 237.095, routes the notice to the issuing court and to designated local law enforcement agencies, and KRS 237.095(3) makes the designated agency responsible for reasonable efforts to see the petitioner is notified; KRS 237.095(4) grants good-faith civil immunity, and KRS 237.095(5) covers only orders issued or reissued on or after July 14, 2000 through July 15, 2002.
A petitioner can get armed faster. KRS 403.754 lets a petitioner for an order of protection apply electronically to the Department of Kentucky State Police for a temporary concealed carry permit on the same terms as a KRS 237.110 licensee, issued if the applicant is not disqualified under KRS 237.110(4)(a) to (h). It runs 45 days, cannot be extended or reissued, and becomes a standard license only if the KRS 237.110(4) training is finished inside that window. Failing to display it on an officer's request is a noncriminal violation with a $25 penalty, and KRS 403.754(11) says nothing in the section authorizes carry by a prohibited person.
Kentucky's nearest thing to a judicially imposed firearm prohibition is KRS 237.108, and it is not risk-based. A court that orders a commitment or makes a finding subjecting a person to 18 U.S.C. sec. 922(d)(4) and (g)(4) must have the circuit clerk send the person's name, nonclinical identifying information, and the commitment order to the Department of Kentucky State Police, which forwards it to the FBI for NICS, and must notify the person of those federal prohibitions. KRS 237.108(2) provides a route back: a petition to the same court, served on the director of the Division of Behavioral Health and the county attorney and decided in a closed proceeding, granted on a preponderance showing that the petitioner is not likely to act dangerously and that relief is not contrary to the public interest, and filed no more than once every two years.
Kentucky answers dangerous-person situations through protective orders and criminal charges, not firearm risk orders. A domestic violence order costs a respondent the Kentucky carry license under KRS 237.110(13)(k) and, if the order satisfies 18 U.S.C. 922(g)(8), the federal right to possess firearms at all, punishable by up to 15 years under 18 U.S.C. 924(a)(8). Separately, KRS 527.040 makes possession of a firearm by a convicted felon a Class D felony, or a Class C felony if the firearm is a handgun. What no Kentucky statute provides is a standalone petition to disarm someone a court finds dangerous. For current text of any section cited here, check apps.legislature.ky.gov.
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