THE USE OF WEAPONS AS A QUALIFYING SIGN OF A CRIME: ANALYSIS OF TERMINOLOGY

Abstract

The paper is devoted to consideration of criminal responsibility for armed crimes. The author speculates about main differences of the terms "weapons" and "weapons", stressing the importance of increasing the effectiveness of preventing crimes committed with the use of weapons. In order to maximize the disclosure of the content of these concepts, the author conducts their grammatical and formal legal analysis. Particular attention is paid to the tendencies and orientations of courts at the federal and regional levels in assessing the objective and subjective features of armed crimes, in particular Art. 111, 112, 115, 126, 127, 162, 206, 211, 213, 227, 313 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation and others. Much attention is payed to the definition of the legal status of inappropriate, decommissioned, collection weapons and items withdrawn from civil circulation (kisteni, knuckles, shuriken, boomerangs, etc.). On the basis of the analysis of judicial practice, the author reasonably points out the impossibility and inexpediency of their recognition as a weapon in the criminal legal sense of the word in view of the absence of either a legal or constructive sign of arms established in Federal Law No. 150-FZ of December 13, 1996 (as amended on 06.07. 2016) "On the weapon". The paper studies the concept "apply" in comparison with the concept "use", which are close in meaning. Based on the criminal-legal and grammatical assessment. The author concludes that the using weapons means the objective possibility of its application in real life. The applying of weapons is the direct implementation of the constructive properties of weapons (shot production, striking, etc.).