Philadelphia resident Shaneen Allen is a 27-year-old single mother who works two jobs to provide for her two children. Acting on the wise advice of a relative she bought a gun, took a gun safety course, and obtained official permission to exercise her innate right to self-defense. However, she made the mistake of crossing from Pennsylvania into a different tax jurisdiction called New Jersey, which is ruled by a different criminal clique through a different set of arbitrary edicts.
After being stopped by a costumed revenue farmer for violating one of New Jersey’s manifold official restrictions on the right to travel, Shaneen made the tragic mistake of being entirely candid when asked if she had any weapons in her possession. As a result she has been charged with the second-degree felony of “unlawful possession” of the means of self-defense. She faces the prospect of three years in a cage and the loss of her children.
The officer who abducted Shaneen actually admitted that she was being punished for her honesty. The same admission was made by the judge at her arraignment. Despite the fact that Shaneen has no criminal record, and clearly displayed no criminal intent, Atlantic County Prosecutor Jim McClain is refusing to offer her entry into a diversionary program that would allow her to avoid prison.
“When law and morality contradict each other,” wrote Frederic Bastiat, “the citizen has the cruel alternative of either losing his moral sense or losing his respect for the law.” Shaneen Allen has never broken the law in any sense; the edict that she ignorantly violated has no moral validity. Her case offers infuriating, albeit redundant, proof of the maxim that the only thing governments “make” are criminals out of innocent people, and corpses out of living human beings.
4:41 pm on July 14, 2014
