The thesis focuses on a comprehensive study of the peculiarities of the content and essence of the objective and subjective signs of the basic, qualified and particularly qualified body of a criminal offence, provided for Art. 263-1 of the Criminal Code, clarification of specific contradictions, vagueness of relevant legal definitions of criminal legislation and the development of relevant proposals for its
improvement.
The relevance of the chosen research topic is determined by a significant quantity of problems of theoretical-legal and law-enforcement nature. In particular, insufficient level of scientific research of the specified problem, which is determined relatively by the newest character of the formulated criminal-law norm; lack of generally recognized scientific positions from the majority of the
issues the authors had researched; need to determine the main directions of further improvement of criminal legislation in the researched field of illegal circulation of sources of increased degree of danger; difficulty of qualifying and distinguishing homogeneous acts, the subject of which are firearms, ammunition, explosives and explosive devices, in particular.
Theoretical, historical and international legal problems of criminal liability for illegal handling of weapons, ammunition, and explosives were studied in Chapter I.
A retrospective approach to assessing the state of research on the problem under consideration allowed to identify certain tendencies and regularities regarding determination of the research’s main directions, content and essence of those scientific positions, which subsequently gained general recognition and formal consolidation in criminal legislation, contributed to the definition of specific scientific problems that required more in-depth research.
Generalized analysis of a significant scope of provisions of the legal doctrine of both a purely criminal-legal (criminological) focus and a forensic one, which directly (or indirectly) concerning the limits and nature of the legal regulation of relations associated with the arms trafficking, expedient mechanism (instrument) of protecting the rights, freedoms, and legitimate interests of citizens from criminal and illegal encroachments using the dangerous properties of the objects of these encroachments allowed the authors to propose a certain periodization of the doctrine of law development in the field under consideration: from the 50s of the
19th century– before the restoration of Ukraine's independence in 1991; from 1991 till 2001 – the first decade of Ukraine's independence before the adoption of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in 2001; from 2001 till 2012 – formation of prerequisites for the emergence of a new type of crime; from 2012 to today - the development of scientific research on the composition of the criminal offense provided for in Art. 263-1 of the Criminal Code.
On the basis of historical systematic-comparative study of legal sources of general and criminal law nature, which were applied on the territory of Ukraine during the times of Kyivan Rus, the Principality of Galicia-Volhynia, the times of the legislation of the russian and Austro-Hungarian Empires, the validity of the Criminal Code of Ukraine in 1922, 1927, 1960, 2001 and until today and related to
the legal regulation of the sphere of illegal circulation of weapons, ammunition and explosives substances, it is proposed to tentatively distinguish the following historical stages: 10th–16th centuries – the stage of criminalization of actions related to the use of weapons (of various types); actions, the object of which is a weapon; 17th–beginning of 20th century – the stage of formation of codified
criminal legislation regarding illegal handling of weapons and explosives, processing and other actions aimed at improving their properties; 1920–1991 (mainly the time of Ukraine's accession to the USSR) – the stage of development of criminal legislation in terms of clarification of definitions and sanctions regarding various actions in relation to weapons, ammunition, explosives and changes in their properties; from 1991 till the present time – the period of final transformation and formation of the criminal legislation of Ukraine in the field of illegal arms trafficking, ammunition, explosives against the background of the main focuses of the formation of legal independence of Ukraine and the discussion of the possibilities of legalizing the circulation of certain types of weapons.
Carrying out a systematic and legal comparative analysis of the current criminal legislation of the following world countries: Georgia, the Republic of Tajikistan, the Republic of Uzbekistan, the Republic of Moldova, the Republic of Azerbaijan, the Republic of Kazakhstan, the People's Republic of China, the Republic of Lithuania, the Republic of Poland, the Czech Republic, the Republic
of Turkey, the Kingdom of Spain, the Republic of France
