New Jersey has arguably the strictest gun laws on the books and one single mom is learning the hard way that prosecutors there don't make exceptions for honest mistakes.
Shaneen Allen is a single mother with two children and after she was robbed twice, she went through the proper legal channels to obtain a firearm and a concealed carry license in her home state of Pennsylvania. She has no criminal record. Allen is currently facing up to ten years in prison after she crossed a bridge from Pennsylvania to New Jersey with her firearm. Her firearm is legal and registered in Pennsylvania, but illegal in New Jersey. She was pulled over after crossing the bridge for a traffic violation and voluntarily told the officer she had a firearm in the vehicle (standard practice for law abiding citizens when pulled over while carrying by police). Her honest admission and honest mistake of crossing an arbitrary line into another state landed her in jail and charged with a felony.
"As I let them know that (that she had a firearm), that's when they started to lock me up," Allen said in an interview. "I wasn't a threat to the police."
When President Obama and Senator Dianne Feinstein's gun control bill failed last year thanks to a lack of Democrat votes, one piece of news got buried. That same day more Senators from both sides of the political aisle voted for national carry reciprocity than voted for more gun control. National reciprocity would not only give citizens their Second Amendment rights back, but would have also saved Allen and her children from the hell she's going through now.
NRA News correspondent Ginny Simone has been all over this story for months now. Watch her report below.