As you amy know. Governor Doug Ducey is once again trying to get his STOP legislation pushed through the Arizona legislature. We all know its wrong but I wanted to share with you my letter i sent to the Gov opposing this idea
Governor Ducey,
I am writing to ask you to reconsider your well meaning but ill advised Severe Threat Order of Protection idea. I have read your proposal and it is clear you are working to protect both the innocent victims of violence and the innocent targets of other red flag laws. I am worried however that the safe guards you are trying to put in place are not enough to prevent abuse. The claim of fear is subjective. Lawyers will have a field day picking that apart and any penalty for filing a false claim will be hard to enforce. Second, once this door is open who is to say your successor can't just rewrite certain aspects to remove any safeguards? Third, there are already ways within current laws that do the same thing WITHOUT violating a persons constitutional rights. Any person can bring a threat to the police. Then can then ask the courts to schedule a hearing. The accused is then notified and allowed to address the court BEFORE a final decision is made. In the mean time emergency protection orders are allowed to protect those in fear. This works if everyone is willing to go through the process. Sadly, police and prosecutors are too lax about this and protection orders are not properly enforced. That is not a failure of the law, it is a failure of those sworn to uphold it. New laws are not the answer.
Anytime a person is guilty until proven innocent the constitution and very fabric of our nation has been violated. The courts will soon be flooded with challenges to the red flag laws sweeping the nation. There is no way they will stand but many innocent Americans will suffer until then. Don't let any of them be here in Arizona.
Thanks for your time and thanks for what you have done for Arizona so far. Please don't tarnish that great legacy with this terrible idea.
If you are in AZ please write your own letter and let him know how you feel about this. Angry and threatening is NOT a way to get things done. Please remember this guy has done a lot of good for the state. We just need to let him know this is NOT one of those things.
