Glenn Harlan Reynolds, a.k.a. Instapundit, makes an interesting connection between NFL wife-beater Ray Rice and a very different New Jersey “criminal” — single mother-of-three Shaneen Allen, who inadvertently ran afoul of Garden State gun laws last autumn, and who now faces a felony charge. Writes Reynolds at USA Today:

When Ray Rice beat his wife unconscious in an elevator, New Jersey Superior Court Judge Michael Donio and New Jersey District Attorney Jim McClain agreed to put him in a diversion program for 1st-time offenders to keep him out of jail. But when Pennsylvania single mom Shaneen Allen was pulled over for a traffic violation and volunteered to a New Jersey police officer that she was carrying a legally-owned handgun with a Pennsylvania permit, the response of Donio and McClain was to deny her the same opportunity as Rice.

National Review has written extensively about Allen’s case. Here are the details, from our July editorial:

In October of 2013, a Pennsylvania resident named Shaneen Allen drove into New Jersey’s Atlantic County and was pulled over by police for an “unsafe lane change.” When the detaining officer arrived at her car window, Allen informed him that she was carrying a concealed firearm, and presented her Pennsylvania carry license as proof of eligibility. Unbeknownst to her at the time, however, was that New Jersey is among the 20 states that do not recognize Pennsylvania’s permit. In consequence, she was arrested. If convicted of the charges that the state has elected to bring, she will be locked in prison for up to a decade.

Allen’s case offers a prime opportunity for beneficent prosecutorial discretion. But anti-gun zealotry has trumped common sense, such that a violent offender was let off and a non-violent one locked up. If only Rice had been carrying a firearm at the time of his assault, he’d be facing the chair now.