An 80-year-old Swedish woman is being prosecuted for weapons possession after a century-old rifle, forgotten in a storage unit since the 1960s, was discovered and found to still be functional. She had borrowed the gun from a shooting club as a teenager, which was legal at the time, and later stored it away, unaware it might someday be considered illegal. Authorities found the weapon while clearing out her unpaid storage unit in Söderhamn earlier this year.
Although the woman maintains she never intended to commit a crime and had not used the rifle in decades, Swedish law makes no exception for unregistered firearms, regardless of age or context. Police deemed the weapon operational, which triggered modern firearms regulations. The octogenarian reluctantly signed a confession during police questioning and expressed disbelief that something so innocuous from her youth could lead to criminal charges today.
The prosecutor is treating the matter as a standard-grade weapons offense, which carries a potential prison sentence of up to five years—though whether she will face jail time remains uncertain. A conviction is likely, given her confession and the legal status of the weapon. Authorities pursuing this case are facing significant ridicule, given that police and courts are already under pressure from Sweden’s growing organized crime problems and don’t seem to have much of a handle on those, much more serious crimes.
The woman’s brief, 30-minute trial will attempt to resolve a situation that, to her, began as a teenage memory—not a crime scene.
