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The law on Weapons was adopted in 1998 in the Republic of Armenia. Apart from providing the privilege to certain state bodies to acquire service weapons, it has never undergone substantive changes since its adoption.

The parliament debated in the first reading the draft law on Regulation of the Circulation of Weapons authored by the NA deputies Vilen Gabrielyan, Andranik Kocharyan and Armen Khachatryan with the related package.

According to Vilen Gabrielyan, most of the provisions of the current law are anachronistic and do not regulate established public attitude and relationships in the field of weapons circulation. “The current law defines the access of citizens to hunting and sporting weapons, but the access to civilian self-defense weapons is incompletely defined, only through the provision of assault weapons, as well as through awarding processes,” the deputy noted. Self-defense weapons are available to the employees of the Police and other structures, who have the right to possess and carry appropriate service weapons outside of official duties.

The proposed legislative amendments should regulate the existing legal relations in the field of circulation of civilian weapons, which are not properly regulated or are controversial until now.

“The initiative is expected to regulate the circulation of weapons and ammunition, to promote the development of hunting, amateur and sports shooting, as well as military training, to introduce a culture of weapons handling, which will be aimed at self-defense and the increase in fighting ability of citizens,” Vilen Gabrielyan emphasized.

The deputies and experts of the NA Standing Committee on Defense and Security, the representatives of the RA Police, a number of non-governmental organizations engaged in hunting, shooting and military training were involved in the development of the draft.

In response to the deputies’ questions, Vilen Gabrielyan noted that the initiative is not aimed at the liberalization of the field, but at the regulation. The deputy considers the risk of an increase in the number of crimes as a result of the changes possible, however, according to Vilen Gabrielyan, the introduced examination procedure will help to control this risk.

In his report, the member of the Standing Committee on Defense and Security Vahagn Aleksanyan noted that the issue was studied in detail and debated in the Committee, and it was endorsed.

The RA Deputy Head of Police Ara Fidanyan presented the position of the Government. He noted that the initiative was repeatedly debated with the authors, a large-scale work was done. According to Ara Fidanyan, agreements were reached on some proposals presented by the Government, but there are some provisions, which will be debated in the first to the second reading.