Current data on non-lethal and lethal weapons: the ukrainian experience

Abstract

Firearms have become widespread in the world, which is conditioned by the broad spectrum of their application. At the same time, in recent decades, the so called means of non-lethal action have also begun to gain significant prevalence, directed mostly at the work of law enforcement agencies with crowds of protesters, unarmed offenders, or as a means of self-defense for certain categories of the population. In Ukraine, all these varieties of weapons have become significantly widespread, which is обусловлено both by active combat operations and by the deterioration of the criminogenic situation. It is also worth noting that the weapons market is being actively replenished with samples of domestic production. All these factors have led to the fact that the picture concerning weapons in Ukraine has changed to a considerable extent and this requires analysis and systematization from the point of view of ballistics, criminalistics, and forensic medicine as a science, in order to assess how the scientific community has responded to these changes and how well this issue has been studied. The aim of the article is the analysis of scientific sources concerning the topic of ballistic, experimental studies regarding domestic or widespread-in-Ukraine weapons by domestic scientists working in this field. To perform this analysis, a search for scientific sources not older than 10 years concerning this topic was carried out (the search was conducted using keywords that most accurately convey the subject of the article), taking into account the results of domestic authors working in the field of criminalistics and ballistics. The conducted review of sources showed that there are several main centers of firearms research in Ukraine, that is, groups of authors who systematically publish data concerning this topic. The largest number of publications concerns the study of the domestic manufacturer of firearms – “Fort”, which produces both lethal and non-lethal firearms. The analysis of literary sources showed that despite its name, even non-lethal firearms can cause serious injuries, in the case of non-observance of the firing distance. At the same time, research data showed that clothing is a kind of protective layer that makes it possible to avoid the formation of serious injuries to the human body. Also, an important place is occupied by studies aimed at the identification of weapons. In this case, such a feature is often considered to be the peculiarities of the deposition of microscopic elements on the trace-receiving surface or the presence of a specific imprint of a firearm that is formed upon contact shooting. Stun guns are also sufficiently studied from the point of view of the morphology of the injuries that they can inflict, although they never became the basis for use among law enforcement agencies. Thus, it can be concluded that in Ukraine there are systematic and complete studies of various types of firearms, with an emphasis on the domestic manufacturer. These studies include both the analysis of macroscopic changes and microscopic, laboratory data, which is important for achieving accurate and statistically reliable results.