The Self Defense and Legal Implications of Policies enacted by Mark Killian and Elliot Hibbs
Long story short. Under this ever-changing and un-written policy, there is little, if any option for self defense.
Originally, Department of Revenue managers were threatening their underlings with "termination" if they were caught with weapons in their vehicles on state property. Killian claims that no governmental agency in Arizona allows their employees to check. He is wrong. Never mind that there is no state statute allowing this policy. Even if it were legal to do so, it would require Shannon, or any other state employee to be disarmed from home to work and back again. Imagine Shannon driving from Apache Junction to downtown Phoenix and back with her father lurking about trying to even the score for his time spent in prison.
Mark Killian now denies that there is such a policy, written or otherwise. But he refuses to issue a public statement, in writing, that employees are under no legal or vocational threat if they have self defense tools in their vehicles.
Killian originally offered to give Shannon an armed guard escort to and from the building. There are a few problems with this. First, the Supreme Court has ruled that these government employees are under no legal obligation to protect individuals. In other words, should they fail to protect her, Shannon's next of kin could not successfully sue the State of Arizona. Shocked, are you? Set your peepers on Warren v District of Columbia and other cases.
Second, the security personnel would not be able to recognize Shannon's attacker and whether he was truly attacking her, and so would not necessarily act in a timely fashion whereas Shannon would know both right off the bat. Governor Hull's flunky policy aide, Tim Lawless, told one of our activists, "What is she gonna do, pull a Wyatt Earp and shoot the guy? What if she shoots the wrong person?" Indeed.
The studies show that police are actually 11 times more likely to shoot the wrong person than are citizens (330 to 30 in 1995 for example. See "The Great American Gun Debate" Don B. Kates and Prof Gary Kleck). Why? When a criminal has his hands wrapped around a victim's throat, the victim knows who the attacker is. Police who arrive on the scene may not be able to sort things out until well after the crime has been committed.
Third, if Killian can say that disarming Shannon is okay because she has armed guards, couldn't a Governor Killian say the same thing is true of all Arizona citizens because we have police to protect us?
Here are two more inanities from Tim "Clueless" Lawless (sorry, that is what many legislators call him). He said that "[He has] a right to expect that the person parking next to [him] is not packing a gun." I can't find that in the Arizona Constitution, can you? And lastly, he says that they can disarm their employees because of a rambling and off-topic Attorney General Opinion written last year by Democrat AG (and candidate for governor) Janet Napalitano. Napalitano's opinion is off-topic. It has nothing to do with actually checking a firearm as per 13-3102(A)(10). Napalitano also cites no law. We must ask, which law forbids an employee from checking firearms? In Arizona, firearms regulating authority must be specifically granted by the legislature as found in ARS 13-3108. If the authority is not found there, it doesn't exist. Which part of 13-3108 allows Mark Killian to forbid employees from checking firearms? Contrast Napalitano's weak reasoning with the Opinion given by Utah's Attorney General.
Back to self defense issues.
Now Killian is offering to allow Shannon to park in the closest parking space possible to the building. It never occurred to them that having Shannon be at the same place at 9am and the same place at 6pm would not somehow be desirable and advantageous to the man (her rapist-father) who wants to harm her. It's a good thing for Killian and Hibbs that we can't sue these jokers. We would own them.
Speaking of lawsuits, Mark Killian may have stepped in front of an on-coming train when he sent an e-mail to the 720 employees under his management. After reading the e-mail, many, if not most, of Shannon's co-workers thought that Shannon wanted to keep her gun by her desk. They began taunting her behind her back and to her face. This created a hostile work environment which may very well be actionable in a court of law.
The Bottom Line: All of the bureaucrats we have called, from the Governor's office on down, have eventually been backed into a corner. They say they will disarm her because they can. They have the police flunkies ready to do their bidding to intimidate anyone who might go armed for their self defense. These are the same police, such as newly-hired Capitol Police Chief Andrew Staubich 602-542-4580, who have sworn an oath to uphold Arizona's Constitution, but had no idea what was contained in that document's Declaration of Rights. He refused to say whether anyone would be arrested (and under what statute they would be arrested for), if a citizen attempted to check a weapon at the Revenue building, and could not cite a statute (actually, he refused to cite a statute) which would apply. You see, Staubich serves at the pleasure of Elliot Hibbs (and Governor Hull). If Andy would decide to actually protect the rights of citizens and obey the Constitution, he would do so at the peril of his plumb, new job, and his mortgage payment. A roof over his head is more important than his Oath of office and the Arizona Constitution which he has yet to read. Sadly, he admitted that he was unaware that Arizona's Declaration of Rights forbids impairing on the right to bear arms.
So, what we have is rule, not by reason, but by brute force. In this case, might makes right. "Take the State of Arizona to court," was one taunt given to a recent caller to Hibbs' office. This type of behavior is not new to Shannon. She has learned that male authority figures want to control. She knows first-hand what can happen to her if she does not fight for her rights. "I will do it because I can" is the same dictate forced on her by her rapist-father. Rational justification and individual rights has no meaning to a felon, or Jane's army of bureaucratic thugs.