BANGKOK (AFP) – A deadly shooting in a Bangkok mall, Thailand allegedly by a 14-year-old has again exposed Thailand’s gun violence problems, with police selling firearms onto the black market and a youth culture that celebrates weapons among the driving factors.
Two people were killed and five others wounded on Tuesday when a shooter opened fire at the upmarket Siam Paragon mall in the heart of the Thai capital, sending terrified shoppers fleeing into the streets.
Tomorrow marks a year since a former policeman murdered 24 children and 12 adults at a nursery in northern Thailand using a knife and legally owned handgun bought under a government scheme.
That incident prompted shock around the world and government promises on gun control, but the kingdom is still awash with firearms and deadly shootings are reported in Thai media almost every week.
New interior minister Anutin Charnvirakul had promised “tougher restrictions” on firearm licences even before the mall shooting, and National Police Chief Torsak Sukwimol called on Tuesday for increased mental health checks. But similar promises have been made in the past to little avail, and experts are sceptical effective action will be taken.
Thailand has one of the highest rates of gun ownership in the region, with 10 million firearms in circulation according to the GunPolicy.org website – roughly one for every seven Thais.
The result is brutal: Thailand recorded almost 1,300 gun deaths in 2019, the latest year data is available – compared to around 130 in neighbouring Vietnam, where the population is around 40 per cent higher.
Boonwara Sumano of the Thailand Development Research Institute pointed to cultural norms that valorise guns from a young age.
“It’s very common among students of vocational education institutes to build their own guns,” she told AFP.
Police said the Bangkok mall shooter appears to have used a blank-firing pistol modified to shoot live rounds.
“The underpinning factor in Thai society is the norm that you need to look strong, look powerful, and guns are the way of showing that,” Boonwara said.
Thailand strictly controls arms imports, with merchants restricted to small annual quotas and hobbled by high prices.
To legally purchase a gun, buyers must be older than 20, undergo a background check and give a reason for ownership, such as self-defence or hunting.
But a government-run so-called gun welfare programme has seen hundreds of thousands of firearms flow into the kingdom – mainly from the United States.
“The real issue was the gun welfare programme,” an independent researcher Michael Picard who focuses on small arms proliferation and corruption, told AFP.
Under the scheme, government personnel are given discounts on personal guns and buy them directly through their agencies, rather than through the civilian licensing process.
And while there are restrictions on the number of guns and ammunition a private individual can buy, there are no limits under the welfare programme.
“This leads to a dangerous status quo in which some cops sell their discounted guns onto the black market for profit,” Picard said.
