If you’re a gun nut, this story will have you screaming. If you aren’t, then you might still find the five year jail sentence handed down to be ridiculous.

Me, I guess I’m more on the gun nut side of that scale.

A grandmother has been jailed for five years for possessing a “family heirloom” World War II pistol.

Gail Cochrane, 53, had kept the gun for 29 years following the death of her father, who had been in the Royal Navy.

Police found the weapon, a Browning self-loading pistol, during a search of her home in Dundee while looking for her son.

She admitted illegal possession of the firearm, an offence with a minimum five-year jail term under Scots law.

Cochrane told the High Court in Edinburgh that she had never contemplated she might be committing a crime by keeping the gun or that she might need to get a licence for the weapon.

She said: “I thought it was just a war trophy.”

Defence solicitor advocate Jack Brown argued that the circumstances surrounding the case were exceptional and that it would be “draconian, unjust and disproportionate” to jail the grandmother-of-six.

Unjust and disproportionate, indeed. An 80 year old Czech pistol with no ammunition isn’t worth a five year sentence.

Of course, I’m one of those weirdos who doesn’t believe that I need the government’s permission to be allowed to defend myself and to own the right tools for that defense.

Read the story.