FACTBOX | Thailand's gun culture and past shootings

Thai police have arrested a 14-year-old suspected of using a modified handgun to kill two people and injure five others at a luxury mall in central Bangkok. Here are some other recent high-profile gun crimes in Thailand and facts about its gun laws and culture.

RECENT SHOOTINGS

• In October 2022, a former police officer killed 35 people, including 22 children, in a gun-and-knife attack at a nursery in eastern Thailand, later killing his wife and child at their home before turning his weapon on himself. It was the country's worst massacre.

• In June 2021, a former soldier fired gunshots in a coronavirus field hospital near Bangkok, killing a 54-year-old patient after shooting a convenience store employee to death. The 23-year-old gunman had believed the patients in the hospital were drug addicts and said he hated them.

• In February 2020, a soldier angry about a property deal gone sour killed at least 29 people and wounded 57 in four locations in and around the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima. Most of the victims were at the Terminal 21 Korat shopping centre, where the 32-year-old shooter held out against an overnight siege with an assault rifle and ammunition stolen from his army base. He was later shot and killed.

• Just 10 days after that shooting, a man killed his ex-wife and wounded another person at a shopping centre in Bangkok.

GUN LAWS

• Illegal possession of a firearm carries a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to 20,000 baht (R10,415), but gun ownership is high compared with some other countries in Southeast Asia.

• Applicants for a gun owner's licence must give a genuine reason to possess a firearm, such as for hunting or collecting. The applicant must be at least 20 years old and undergo background checks that consider personal conduct, living conditions, income and criminal records.

• After the nursery massacre, the government tightened gun ownership rules, including requiring regular mental health checks and revoking licences of registered owners who have reportedly behaved in a way that “threatens society” and “creates chaos or causes unrest”.

• There were more than 6-million registered firearms nationwide as of 2023, according to the interior ministry, but an unknown number of illegal weapons, often sourced from strife-torn countries or smuggled in, are also in circulation.

• The annual number of firearm deaths was 1,292 in 2019, down from 2,953 deaths a decade earlier, according to Gunpolicy.org, run by the University of Sydney.

PUBLIC ATTITUDES

• Gun violence is not uncommon in Thailand, though mass shootings remain relatively rare.

• Thais often complain online about a perceived decrease in personal safety and say guns are idolised by some as symbols of power and privilege because they are expensive and not easy to obtain legally.

Reuters