A day after a teenage boy opened fire and shot two people dead and wounded five others inside Bangkok's Siam Paragon Mall in the, police reveled that the 14-year-old boy used a mock handgun that had been modified to fire real bullets.
Yesterday, the suspect was reportedly taken into custody within an hour of opening fire at one of Bangkok's biggest and most upscale shopping destinations.
According to the minister of Tourism and Sports, Sudawan Wangsuppakitkosol, the shooting incident led to the death of a Chinese citizen and a Myanmar citizen while five more people who sustained injuries were hospitalised.
About the shooting incident
On social media, a video emerged where a long-haired teenage boy was seen in the custody of police. Major Thai media reported he was 14 years old and a student at a prominent private school.
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According to the recently appointed police chief Torsak Sukvimol, the boy is a minor and has a record of being treated for mental illness.
Assistant National Police Chief Samran Nualma said at a news conference Wednesday that the weapon used was “a plastic gun and adapted to use with real bullets.” It has variously been described as originally intended to fire blanks or BBs.
Mock weapons are popular among military buffs in Thailand and can be freely purchased. Licensing of real guns is restricted and limited to people 20 years or older. The penalty for unlawful possession of a firearm is up to 10 years in prison and a fine of 20,000 baht (USD 538).
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History of gun violence in Thailand
This unfortuately, as not the maiden incident of gun violence in Thailand, though mass shootings are rare.
The incident occurred days before Thais are to mark the anniversary of the country's biggest mass killing by an individual, a gun and knife attack at a rural day care centre in a northeastern province that killed 36 people, most of them preschoolers, on October 6, 2022.
In 2020, a disgruntled soldier opened fire in and around a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima, killing 29 people and holding off security forces for about 16 hours before eventually being killed by them.
Although gun laws in Thailand are relatively restrictive, the country has one of the highest levels of gun ownership in Asia, according to GunPolicy.org, a research project at Australia's University of Sydney.
There are about 10 guns per 100 people in Thailand, including those owned illegally, compared with less than one per 100 in neighbouring Malaysia, the project said.
