Abstract: The research subject is legal and organizational problems of preparation of police officers to the situations involving use of firearms as one of the forms of administrative coercion. Solutions to such problems lie within the improvement and conjunction of particular aspects of professional training (weapons training, legal training, tactical training, physical training, psychological training, etc.). A conceptually new way to solve these problems is the cybernetic approach based on three fundamental aspects of cybernetics: information, management and organizational. The research methodology is based on such general philosophical methods as observation and modeling, and the method of comparative analysis and the system method. The author considers a cybernetic system, in which the mechanism of decision-making over the issue of use of firearms by a police officer (management object) is a component of the system of official activities and professional training of a police officer (management cycle). The author concludes that all the elements of the system of police officers training for use of firearms should be aimed at the final result – effective and legal use of firearms. To achieve this result, the author offers particular procedures corresponding with fundamental aspects of cybernetics: observation of certain information background during training (situational targets, environment, light, sounds, etc.); appropriate reflection of all elements of the training system in official documents, optimal target setting in the training process.

Abstract: The subject of the research is the problems of training law enforcement officers to use weapons. Each law enforcement officer needs not only to be able to shoot in any conditions but also to immediately make the right decisions about whether to use weapons or not in accordance with the law. It is possible to practice typical situations in which it may be necessary to use weapons only if special situational targets are used (police or tactical targets). However, the targets that are used nowadays have certain drawbacks: high cost, limited scope of application, etc. The methodological basis of the research involved general philosophical methods such as observation or modeling as well as the method of comparative analysis and systems approach. The main conclusion of the research is that training should model all kinds of real situations. This is why the authors offer to use innovative character situational targets that are standard targets with role elements (a knife, gun, grenade, etc.) and consequently more universal and less expensive.