Use of Firearms in Private Protection Services

Abstract

Overall private protection activities for the protection of persons and property are in the major- ity of cases treated in the context of preventive protection activities, although the direct execu- tors of private protection tasks are given some repressive powers, primarily in the case of the need to protect one's own life and/or the person who is the object of protection when perform- ing the aforementioned tasks. However, the use of the aforementioned security powers from the category of means of coercion, starting with the use of physical force (sprayers of permitted non-harmful substances, binding agents), through a security dog, and up to the use of firearms in practice often results in a series of accompanying problems in cases where the application of the said powers by the security guard really did come. In this context, of course, the largest part of the mentioned problem falls on the use of firearms as the most powerful repressive means that the security guard has at his disposal when repelling a simultaneous and illegal attack on his own integrity or the person who is the object of protection. Following the aforementioned, as well as the general interpretation according to which the powers of private security guards essentially derive from the so-called of "civil powers" (necessary defense, emergency and civil arrest) which in principle every citizen has, in the following paper, the normative regulation re- lated to the use of firearms by security guards in the Republic of Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovi- na, the Republic of Slovenia and the Republic of Serbia is analyzed , and at the same time give an answer to the research question, whether the aforementioned legal solutions that regulate the work of security guards give the direct executors of private protection the appropriate authority to perform private protection work and/or ultimately to a certain extent restrain and stigmatize them in relation to the broadest civil powers when defending against an attack. In this context, the latest case in the Ritz night club in Zagreb (from April 22, 2023) was also analyzed, in which the actions of the security guards and repelling the attack with the use of firearms were (at this time) characterized as the criminal offense of murder, not the use of firearms. weapons when performing private protection duties with fatal consequences.