The Scottish judicial system is fucked-up.

[devogue]

Kept it under the mattress not in the box with the pictures and momentos though ..so she knew and thought of it as a weapon .

Yes- I think the mattress thing is the clincher!

Moreso, if the weapon was loaded.

What I object to is this: "...illegal possession of the firearm, an offence with a minimum five-year jail term under Scots law." Every time I hear of this sort of legislation, I am reminded of a report at a time when "truth in sentencing", which was quite the fashion in several Australian states at the time, limited a magistrate's or judge's discretion in determining the result of a guilty verdict. It was about an old woman who got caught attempting to steal one can of cat food from a shop. It was not for any cat. She intended to eat it herself.

The proper thing to do would have been to sentence the defendant to the sitting of the bench at most and prosecute whoever insisted on taking her to court in the first place for criminally antisocial behaviour, but of course the law did not allow that.

Well, it's a slippery slope. One day it's cat food, the next it's fish flakes.

[colubridae]

Did she have any current ammunition?

[JimC]

My dad served in the Middle East, and brought back a German Luger as a souvenir. I used to play with it (sans ammunition, of course...)

Before he died, there was a gun amnesty, and he handed it in, some 40 years or so after the end of the war...

For the best, I guess...

[Hermit]

Kept it under the mattress not in the box with the pictures and momentos though ..so she knew and thought of it as a weapon .

Yes- I think the mattress thing is the clincher!

Moreso, if the weapon was loaded.

What I object to is this: "...illegal possession of the firearm, an offence with a minimum five-year jail term under Scots law." Every time I hear of this sort of legislation, I am reminded of a report at a time when "truth in sentencing", which was quite the fashion in several Australian states at the time, limited a magistrate's or judge's discretion in determining the result of a guilty verdict. It was about an old woman who got caught attempting to steal one can of cat food from a shop. It was not for any cat. She intended to eat it herself.

The proper thing to do would have been to sentence the defendant to the sitting of the bench at most and prosecute whoever insisted on taking her to court in the first place for criminally antisocial behaviour, but of course the law did not allow that.

Well, it's a slippery slope. One day it's cat food, the next it's fish flakes.

...followed by dog-worming tablets, no doubt.