Hair trigger

The Delaware River delineates a national gun divide. On one side, a young mother decided her best defense against violent crime was to buy a gun - no doubt the remedy envisioned by state legislators who have sought to punish her hometown, Philadelphia, for any attempt at gun control. But carrying the weapon across the river got her weeks in jail and, but for a belated outbreak of prosecutorial restraint, years in prison with the criminals she was hoping to fend off.

Gov. Christie's recent pardon of Shaneen Allen ended her ordeal a year and a half later, but not before she became a cause célèbre for gun-rights activists and a challenge to gun-control advocates. Allen's case doesn't shake the foundations of New Jersey's gun laws, as the former group would have it, but it can't be ignored by the latter.

Allen, a phlebotomist and single mother of two who held multiple jobs and often worked late, obtained a Pennsylvania concealed-carry permit and a .38-caliber pistol after being robbed twice. Soon thereafter, she was driving on the Atlantic City Expressway when a state trooper pulled her over for an "unsafe lane change." She told him the gun was in her purse and presented the permit, which is not recognized in New Jersey. She was arrested for illegal possession of the gun and hollow-point bullets.

Allen was indicted on two felony counts and spent some 40 days in jail before she could post bail. Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain's office initially maintained that although she was a first-time offender, she could not avoid prosecution through pretrial intervention due to the seriousness of the charges. At one point, she was offered a plea to serve the minimum sentence prescribed by state law: 3 1/2 years.

Just as this case was about to veer further off the expressway, the state's acting attorney general, John J. Hoffman, stepped in with some much-needed guidance, noting that incarceration is not appropriate in cases like Allen's. McClain then relented and allowed her to enter pretrial intervention.

Hoffman's directive noted that while New Jersey law offers only narrow exceptions to mandatory sentences for gun crimes, most county prosecutors find ways to avoid imprisoning otherwise lawful gun owners from out of state. As Hoffman pointed out, prosecutorial discretion is crucial in these cases.

But Allen's case illustrates the danger of relying on prosecutors for restraint, a consequence of any mandatory minimum sentence. Tough gun laws can save lives, but rigid penalties for sometimes minor crimes risk needlessly ruining lives, along with the rationale for those laws.