Functions of law regulating the right to use firearms by police staff

An analysis is made of the content of the norms of criminal law on necessary defense and the provisions of the Federal Law “On Police” on the use of firearms by police officers. There are two types of functions that criminal law norms have, providing for the right to necessary defense. The first is the orienting function, which establishes the boundaries of permissible behavior. The second is that which gives lawful character to the harmful act. Revealing the purpose of the provisions of Art. 37 of the Criminal Code of the Russian Federation, the article attempts to correlate them with the norms of the branch law on the use of firearms by police officers. Citing the opinions of other scientists, the author comes to the conclusion that both norms are permissive. At the same time, the norms of the criminal law are recognized as general, and the norms regulating the basis and procedure for the use of firearms by police officers in a state of necessary defense are recognized as special. The latter only clarify the rules of necessary defense and perform a concretizing function. This function is implemented in the form of using the casual method of constructing norms. In such cases, the law describes the characteristics of the specific situations in which police officers are most likely to find themselves and defines the boundaries for the lawful use of firearms.