A Republican lawmaker who wants to allow business owners to maim or kill looters is under fire from progressive activists who say she’s inciting violence — and from her primary opponent, who says she stole his idea.

Sen. Michelle Ugenti-Rita, R-Scottsdale, explained in a lengthy Facebook post late last week that she was asking Gov. Doug Ducey to extend a legal justification for using force or deadly force to business owners or managers defending their property from criminal damage.

Neither Ugenti-Rita nor a Ducey spokesman returned calls for comment.

Arizona law already justifies the use of deadly force to prevent serious crimes including murder, kidnapping, sexual assault, armed robbery and burglary. The bill Ugenti-Rita said she plans to propose would extend that justification if the person believes force is necessary to prevent anyone from intentionally defacing or damaging property the person owns or manages.

In her Facebook post, Ugenti-Rita said she received many calls from constituents after a night of vandalism and looting at Scottsdale Fashion Square on May 30.

“Many, if not most, expressed a sentiment that these businesses were the livelihood for their and their employees’ families and they wanted to be able to defend them like their homes,” Ugenti-Rita said. “I agree that a business owner should have the ability to defend their property as a homeowner does. However, this is an action that should only be considered as a last resort and when all other options to protect oneself and one’s business have been exhausted.”

The looting, which happened among a nationwide wave of protests over police treatment of black Americans, was denounced by leaders of the Black Lives Matter movement as unrelated to the wider protests.

Ducey cited looting at the Scottsdale mall in explaining a statewide 8 p.m. curfew he instituted May 31. The curfew has since expired.

Ugenti-Rita’s primary challenger, Scottsdale attorney Alex Kolodin, said he thinks Ugenti-Rita stole the idea for her latest proposed bill from one of his own ads nearly a week before she made her post. And he said that’s proof that the hotly contested GOP primary is a race between a career politician and an outsider with fresh new ideas.

On May 31, the day after looting occurred, Kolodin posted photos of several Scottsdale businesses with graffiti and broken windows with a caption asking followers to let him know if they “think that the state ought to have police and citizens’ backs if they use force in defense of Scottsdale homes and businesses.”

He paid to promote the post, and said it was the second-best performing ad of his campaign. Because of that, he said, he’s quite sure Ugenti-Rita — or at least her campaign team — saw the ad.

“It’s important legislation. I’m glad that she took it and is running with it,” he said, adding that his goal as someone who wants to serve in government is to pass good legislation. “Heck, if I can do it without even being in office, great.”

Progressive activists and about half of the Legislative District 23 constituents who responded to Ugenti-Rita’s Facebook posts would disagree with characterizations of the proposal making a good bill. On Tuesday, the group Progress Now Arizona called on Ugenti-Rita to scrap the bill entirely, saying it would have a disproportionate impact on people of color.

“During a time where the nation is grieving for George Floyd, Dion Johnson, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and countless other people who have been victims of racist police and civilian violence, it is repulsive that Sen. Ugenti-Rita would entertain the idea of justifying these types of murders even further,” Progress Now Arizona executive director Emily Kirkland said in a statement. “Property and products can be replaced, but Black and Brown lives cannot.”