Mass killings: a return to the death penalty or stricter penalties for illicit arms trafficking?

Abstract

In the conditions of a rapid increase in the facts of mass murders committed in educational institutions, the effectiveness of various means of personal protection, developed and implemented recently in our country, is investigated, and the question of the possibility of applying the death penalty, a measure of prevention of especially serious crimes, enshrined in the current criminal law, but not fully implemented due to the moratorium, in the emerging Russian judicial practice. The authors analyse in detail the measures of counteraction to especially grave crimes, in one case, mass murders committed by minors, and in another case, by persons who have reached the age of eighteen but have not reached the age of twenty-one. It is found that, in accordance with the newly developed and enshrined prescriptions of the current legislation, there has been a tightening of responsibility for illegal arms trafficking in the form of a complete ban on the acquisition of any firearms by the named persons. It is shown that the main reason for the rapid increase in mass murders is not the tightening or leniency of the law, but its non-compliance, since in the cases that have occurred, civilian firearms were acquired by young people, as a rule, illegally due to the improper performance of professional duties by various persons. The authors believe that measures consisting of stricter penalties for illicit trafficking in civilian weapons, which have been adopted in recent years, will be more effective in preventing massacres among persons under the age of 21. However, as for such measures to counter especially serious offences committed by persons who have already reached that age, there are great doubts about their effectiveness. In this connection, there is a need to improve the newly adopted measures for the prevention of particularly serious crimes among young people, depending on their age category (under and over twenty-one years of age). A promising solution to the existing problem of counteracting mass murders committed in the youth environment is not only the application of measures restricting and excluding the circulation of weapons in the youth environment, imprisonment for a definite and life term, but also the death penalty, enshrined in the current criminal law and not implemented in judicial practice, which is recognised as a necessary means of combating crime in modern conditions by a significant number (72%) of the country's population.