Remember Shaneen Allen, the twenty-eight-year-old mother of two from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, who had no prior criminal record and was driving to Atlantic City in neighboring New Jersey in October of 2014 when she was pulled over by police, who then discovered that she was carrying a gun she had purchased legally a week earlier for protection after being robbed twice, and for which she had a concealed carry permit from Pennsylvania, but because she didn't have a New Jersey permit, they arrested her ass for "unlawful possession of a weapon" even though she was not a New Jersey resident, after which she was tried and convicted and sentenced to a decade in prison, effectively orphaning her two young sons? Thank God, Governor Chris Christie pardoned her, one of the blizzard of pardons he's had to issue in countless such Gestapo-esque "unlawful possession of a weapon" cases like this because the Donk Jersey legislature insists that the Garden State remain an anti-gun police state.
Well, here we go again:
A Pennsylvania corrections officer who says he was the victim of a car accident in New Jersey ended up facing charges himself when he told police he had a handgun.
That's right, folks, he didn't have it drawn or aimed at anybody or fire hails of bullets in any direction; he had it with him per his vocation as a matter of routine, and informed New Jersey police officers of it as both a courtesy and show that he was a law-abiding citizen who had nothing to hide.
Which means he should have kept his mouth shut.
Raymond Hughes told the Associated Press on Friday that he and his wife were on their way home from a concert and dinner in Atlantic City last month when the crash occurred in Glassboro.
Even entering New Jersey at all was his second mistake.
He told police he had a handgun under his seat, and officers secured his personal 9mm Glock handgun while he went to the hospital, he said. But days later, he was charged with not having a New Jersey permit despite having a license to carry in neighboring Pennsylvania.
Because New Jersey does not have any concealed/carry reciprocity laws, which makes any and all legal, law-abiding gun owners from any of the other forty-nine States "criminals" as soon as they cross the State line.
“I’m one of the good guys,” Hughes said. “Now they’re trying to make me one of the people I protect society from.”
Because in the minds of New Jersey Democrats, you aren't one of the good guys, Mr. Hughes, because you own and carry a gun. And in their State, that makes you a criminal. Like U.S. Marine Sergeant Joshua Velez, whose horror story is even more infuriating:
For the fifth time this year, Governor Christie has pardoned an out-of-State resident facing jail time for unlawful possession of a firearm in New Jersey.
Christie pardoned Joshua Velez, twenty-six, a sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps. He is a military recruiter in both Massachusetts and New Hampshire, a key battleground State Christie has visited dozens of times this year as he campaigns for the Republican presidential nomination.
“He actually purchased the firearm four days after the shooting and killing of recruitment officers in Chattanooga, Tennessee, in July,” said Velez’s attorney, Laura C. Sutnick. She added that Velez has been on active duty for seven years, and was awarded the Navy and Marine Corps Achievement Medal, one of the highest decorations. [emphases added]
....But in New Jersey he was a criminal because he owned and carried a gun because he didn't want to die defenselessly in another jihadist attack. For heaven's sake, is there even such a thing as an unarmed Marine? Outside of "gun-free-zone" military recruitment offices, that is.
Now I know what you're thinking I'm thinking at this point: "Why don't armed visitors to New Jersey just leave their weapons at home? No muss, no fuss. Especially since they have to know what will happen to them if they take their weapons with them." But I'm going to cross y'all up with a different question: Why does any out-of-State gun owner ever go to New Jersey at all? At least outside of an official capacity or necessity? A lot of these examples of Jersey cops preying on them seem to involve going to Atlantic City for entertainment reasons. I can say with utmost confidence that if I lived in Pennsylvania or New York or Delaware or Maryland or any other neighboring State, I'd have no reason or desire to visit the "kiss her where it smells" State whatsoever, just on general principles, and certainly wouldn't do so unless and until they enacted a reasonable gun reciprocity law that would eliminate these, yes, criminal outrages.
At least Ray Hughes can (presumably) look forward to a pardon. After Chris Christie has waddled off to his next endeavor two years from now, I would strongly advise any out-of-State gun owner to boycott New Jersey like it was a leper colony.
Which it kind of is anyway, judging by the smell.
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