Which is Worse: Beating Your Wife or Carrying a Gun with a Permit?

Glenn Instapundit Reynolds in
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 Donis and McClain was
to deny her the same opportunity as Rice.

Allen lives in Philadelphia, right across the river from New
Jersey. She has a Pennsylvania permit to carry a handgun. She
thought it was recognized in New Jersey, just as it
is recognized in over 30 other states. She was
wrong. When she told the officer that she had the gun, she
was arrested.

Now she faces a felony conviction and a mandatory 42
months in prison. 

Reynolds, who teaches law at University of Tennessee, offers up
a solution to such cases:

Under the Constitution, Congress has the power to protect civil
rights via legislation, and this seems like a good subject for
action. I would suggest a law providing that when people who may
legally own guns under federal law are charged with possessing or
carrying them in violation of state law, the maximum penalty should
be a fine of no more than $500. This would allow states a
reasonable degree of regulation, without subjecting individuals to
life-ruining consequences just because some politico wants to make
a point.

Read the whole thing.