54 GIULIANI AND GAGGIO v. ITALY JUDGMENT 1. The parties' submissions (a) The applicants 198. The applicants complained of the absence of a legislative framework capable of protecting the lives of the demonstrators. In their submission, the domestic law had made the use of a firearm inevitable, as demonstrated by the fact that the case had been discontinued because M.P.'s actions came within the scope of Articles 52 and 53 of the CC. According to the Court's case-law, an inadequate legislative framework reduced the statutory protection of the right to life required in a democratic society. The applicants drew the Court's attention to the following points in particular. (i) Failure to equip law-enforcement personnel with non-lethal weapons 199. The applicants stressed that M.P. would not have been able to kill anyone if he had been issued with a non-lethal weapon such as a gun firing rubber bullets (they referred to Güleç v. Turkey, 27 July 1998, § 71, Reports 1998-IV, and Şimşek and Others v. Turkey, nos. 35072/97 and 37194/97, § 111, 26 July 2005). The pre-eminence of respect for human life and the obligation to minimise the risk to life meant that law-enforcement personnel should be equipped with non-lethal weapons (such as electric stun guns, glue guns or guns firing rubber bullets) during demonstrations; this was the case in the United Kingdom and had also been the case at the G20 summit in Pittsburgh. On this point, the applicants relied on paragraph 2 of the UN Principles (see paragraph 154 above), observing that in the instant case it had been easy to foresee that disturbances would occur. The Beretta SB 9 mm parabellum pistol with which M.P. had been equipped was a semi-automatic pistol classified as a combat weapon under the Italian legislation: once loaded, it did not need to be reloaded for subsequent rounds and allowed fifteen shots to be fired within a few seconds, rapidly and with a high degree of accuracy. 200. In the course of a parliamentary inquiry the Government had stated that the legislation in force did not permit the use of non-lethal weapons such as guns firing rubber bullets (see paragraphs 118-119 above). This assertion was incorrect, as these weapons were specifically provided for in the rules of engagement issued to the Italian forces in Iraq, who had the task of maintaining law and order in a war zone. 201. Furthermore, while it was true that rubber bullets could be dangerous in some circumstances, they could not be compared to live ammunition (the applicants referred, in particular, to Kathleen Stewart, cited above, § 28). The applicants also asserted that some carabinieri had used non-regulation weapons such as metal batons.