We just got word yesterday that New Jersey governor Chris Christie has finally signed a pardon for Shaneen Allen, who was arrested in October 2013 for carrying her legally-owned pistol from Pennsylvania to New Jersey.

All we have to say is, “what took him so long?”

Allen says she wasn’t aware that her legally-purchased, legally-concealed firearm was not legal to carry in New Jersey.  During a routine traffic stop, she dutifully informed the officer that she had what she thought was a legally-carried pistol in her car.

She was then arrested and charged with unlawful possession of a weapon and hollow-point bullets which were in the gun – a second-degree felony in New Jersey, which holds a minimum sentence of three-years in prison.

Make no mistake. This young, single mother was punished for being honest, and doing what she felt was the right thing.  “The judge tried to tell me that telling the truth messed me up, my life up and the cop said the same thing. Me opening my mouth and speaking out he said I’m one out of ten people that spoke up and was honest and that got me in trouble.”

Initially, the prosecutor in the case was going to throw the book at this young lady. Then – after a considerable amount of blowback, which included a comparison to the slap on the wrist received by NFL’s Ray Rice for cold-cocking his now-wife in an elevator in Atlantic City – the prosecutor decided to revisit his decision.

Through all of this Christie stayed silent. It’s well known the porcine tyrant supports the state’s absurd gun control laws, and now that he’s thinking about advancing his political career and implanting his corpulent fourth point of contact in the White House, it sure wouldn’t look good for him to stand idly by while the appointed prosecutorial swine raked a woman over the coals for a victimless crime.

Good for Ms. Allen! I’m glad she was cleared of both the gun possession charge and the related ammunition charge.

At the same time, that cynical part of me wants to flip Christie that international body language sign that tells him what I really think of this opportunistic move! He’s responsible for what I’m fairly sure was a year and a half of Allen’s life spent stressing over whether or not she would go to prison, whether or not she would wind up with a criminal record, whether or not she would be forever branded as a felon and have her life ruined!

He could have done this a long time ago, but hey… aren’t elections coming up soon?