Abstract: The article examines the illegal trafficking of weapons as a complex socio-criminological phenomenon that poses a significant threat to public safety and the stability of law and order. Special attention is given to analyzing the main determinants that contribute to the emergence, development, and reproduction of this type of illegal activity. Socio-economic, political-legal, organizational-management, criminogenic, and other factors that facilitate the formation of stable channels for the illegal acquisition, storage, transportation, transfer, and sale of weapons are studied. The interconnection between illegal arms trafficking and organized crime, violent crimes, terrorist activities, and other socially dangerous forms of behavior is emphasized. Particular attention is paid to the causes and conditions that create a favorable environment for the spread of weapons outside the established legal framework, including deficiencies in state control, gaps in legal regulation, manifestations of corruption, and a high level of latency concerning relevant crimes. In conducting the research, the author employed formal-legal methods, dogmatic methods, as well as methods of analysis, induction, and deduction. The author also substantiates the need to improve the legal, organizational, and preventive mechanisms for countering the phenomenon under consideration. It is concluded that increasing the effectiveness of combating illegal arms trafficking is possible through a combination of criminal law, criminological, socio-economic, and informational-analytical measures aimed at both identifying and suppressing specific crimes, and eliminating the factors that contribute to their commission, strengthening interagency cooperation, enhancing the quality of control over arms trafficking, and developing a system for early warning of relevant threats. The author separately notes the importance of monitoring the criminogenic situation, improving the accounting of weapons, enhancing the professional training of law enforcement personnel, and developing preventive work with groups at heightened criminal risk at the regional and municipal levels.

Keywords: illegal arms trafficking, determinants, causes of crime, conditions of crime, crime prevention, countermeasures, criminal law, crime, weapon, criminology