Peculiarities of administrative and legal regulation of firearms trafficking in Ukraine: realities of the present and prospects

Abstract

The article is devoted to the analysis of the current state of legal regulation of firearms circulation in Ukraine and prospects for its improvement. The authors focus on the issue of uncontrolled proliferation of firearms, as evidenced by statistics on the seizure of firearms and ammunition by law enforcement agencies. It is emphasized that the large number of unregistered firearms in the hands of the population, together with the violation of the territorial integrity of Ukraine and the aggravation of the criminogenic situation, determine the urgency of creating a state register of firearms and the adoption of the Law of Ukraine aimed at proper administrative regulation circulation in Ukraine.
 The study takes into account the views of domestic scientists on weapons as a concept, features of its use, application and the need for legal regulation of related processes.
 A review of lawmaking was conducted, which showed that in recent years there have been repeated attempts to adopt the Law of Ukraine, designed to regulate legal relations regarding the acquisition, storage, carrying, use of firearms by civilians. Only during 2021 the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine discussed three such bills - № 4335-1 of November 24, 2020, № 5708 of June 25, 2021 and № 5708-1 of July 13, 2021. All of them were considered by the Committee on Law Enforcement Activities of the Verkhovna Rada of Ukraine.
 It was found that only one of the listed bills received the approval of the relevant Committee. At the same time, it also contains a number of controversial provisions, which, in the opinion of the authors, do not allow to support its adoption in the current version.
 The need to align the draft law with Directive (EU) 2021/555 Of The European Parliament And Of The Council of 24 March 2021 on Control of the acquisition and possession of weapons (codification) was emphasized. In addition, the issue of inconsistency of standards in the field of classification of firearms remains open.