Christie Commutes Aitken's Gun Charge To Time Served

I don't know if this was mentioned here. Readers tipped me by email, but I didn't write a post. Maybe it was sidebarred.

Basically a guy in New Jersey got a very long sentence for gun possession under very dubious circumstances. His mom had alerted police about him, as she was worried he might be suicidal. They stopped him, and found guns in his trunk, which they called illegal -- but they weren't necessarily illegal, as it's legal to transport guns when moving from one home to another, as he seems to have been doing. (Or, at least -- as he argues he was doing, and that seems plausible.)

Christie reduced his sentence to time served, so his nightmare is over. He'll be out of prison as soon as they get the paperwork squared away.

I was going to headline this "My Name is Chris Christie, and Despite My Protestations, I'm Running For Republican Candidate for President," but 1, that treats Aitken as if he's only a punchline to a joke about another man's political ambitions, and 2, thinking about it, I don't think this is evidence of that. It just seems like the right thing to do.

That said, refusing to make this move, and thereby identifying himself as part of the general Gun Grabber movement, which will use any law or set of facts in as vindictively a manner as possible to punish people for exercising their right to bear arms, would have been as close to an automatic disqualifier for Christie as you can get, so he seems to at least remain viable.

(If we can get over his squishiness on amnesty and the Ground Zero mosque, which I don't know if we can. I don't know if I can, I should say. Hey, I may be a RINO, but even RINOs have their own do-not-cross lines.)

posted by Ace at 11:41 AM

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