philly dot com
After a review by the state attorney general, the Atlantic County Prosecutor's Office announced Wednesday that it would allow a Philadelphia woman charged last year with illegally bringing into New Jersey a gun that was legally registered in Pennsylvania to enter a pretrial-intervention program and avoid jail time.
McClain said in a statement Wednesday that, in applying factors set out in the Attorney General's Office review, he had "determined that the defendant in this case should be offered the opportunity to be admitted into the Atlantic County PTI program," and that within the next few weeks, his office would review similar pending cases.
The Office of the Attorney General on Wednesday issued to McClain a clarification of the 2008 Graves Act directive that deals with circumstances in which an out-of-state resident holds a valid permit to carry a firearm within his or her own home state, is arrested in New Jersey, and is charged with illegal possession of a firearm under New Jersey law.
In the clarification, issued by acting Attorney General John J. Hoffman, it was noted that in most of these cases, "imprisonment is neither necessary nor appropriate to serve the interests of justice and protect public safety."
It's kinda funny that after all the whining and crying about unfair treatment by the gun-rights fanatics, including the bizarre exaggeration of Colion Noir, the poor persecuted Shaneen Allen isn't going to be so persecuted after all. Kurt Hofmann used language like "the ruination of this black woman's life, and the lives of her two black children," bringing race into it where no one else had. Now, it seems, all that hysterical shrieking was a bit premature.
Another odd note is that whenever I condemn one of their fellow gun owners for misuse or negligence too quickly, they scream and yell about the need for a lengthy investigation before jumping to conclusions. But, in this case, long before the review by the State Attorny Gereral had been completed, favorably for the accused as it turns out, they were condemning those responsible in the most extreme language possible.
Inconsistency and hypocrisy, that's their thing.
And, mark my words, rather than an admission of any kind, these gun-rights fanatics will actually take credit for the decision. Just watch. In their typical and narcissistic delusional way, these guys will claim that the final decision came BECAUSE of their screaming and yelling and stomping of feet, as if the authorities in Atlantic City, New Jersey are following every word they write on the internet.
I applaud the Atlantic City Prosecutor's Office for its reversal of the earlier decision. I've been opposed to the extreme punishment of jail time for Ms. Allen from the beginning. It's good to see the system working properly.
One final question: compare the above picture of Ms. Allen to the earlier one. See the difference?
