Tranquil Thailand's gun culture in spotlight after shooting sprees
20 February, 2020
Normally serene Thailand has been on edge since a rogue soldier continued the rampage in a northeastern city this month, killing 29 people in a shooting spree that ended in a standoff with police at a shopping mall.
Ten days later, a guy walked into a clinic in a busy Bangkok retail center and gunned down his ex-wife before fleeing the scene. He was later arrested.
The killings, along with other high-profile gun crimes, have called focus on the higher rate of gun ownership, despite the fact that the number and rate of gun killings has drifted downward recently.
Thailand had about 10 million privately owned firearms in 2016, according to Gunpolicy.org, or one for approximately every seven citizens. Of those, about 4 million were illegal.
Thais complained on Twitter about their disappearing sense of personal security, with one user, @KMoungdee posting guidelines for an active response to a shooting.
"I can't say whether Thailand includes a gun problem, nonetheless it certainly includes a gun culture," said Michael Picard, Research Director of GunPolicy.org of the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health.
"Guns are idolised as symbols of power and privilege, because they are expensive and not simple to legally obtain."
While the level of gun violence is high in comparison to a few of Thailand's Southeast Asian neighbours, it's been declining for several years. Thailand had 1,034 gun homicides in 2016, down from 2,234 in 2012. Malaysia counted four in 2016, while the Philippines had a lot more than 7,000 in 2011, GunPolicy.org's latest data shows.
While overall gun violence could be declining, a sense of insecurity has been growing in Bangkok.
Days after the mass shooting in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima on Feb 8 and Feb 9, a Bangkok man sent his neighbourhood into panic by firing off a large number of rounds in a commercial neighbourhood near a university, despite the fact that no-one was hurt and the person was arrested.
In January, an elementary school teacher robbed a gold shop at a mall in Lopburi province, about two hours north of Bangkok, killing three people, including a two-year-old boy.
BUYING ONLINE
"Many commentators have lamented the rise of urban violence as Thailand’s urban centers grow. It is possible that urban crime is increasing while other causes of gun-related homicides are falling," Picard said.
Gun laws have emerged as strict in Thailand, where possession of an against the law firearm posesses prison sentence as high as 10 years and a fine as high as 20,000 baht (US$640).
However, enforcement is a challenge predicated on unlawful firearms in circulation, corruption in the security sector and new channels for buying guns online.
"An emerging method of acquiring unlawful firearms in Thailand is through social media platforms," Picard said.
"This has made it even much easier to acquire an unlawful firearm, as essentially anyone can do it provided that they have an web connection and a bank-account."
A secondhand .38 Smith & Wesson are available online starting at 20,000 baht.
Legally obtaining a firearm in Thailand is about a three-month application process with the provincial department and a charge of around 1,500 baht, an inside Ministry official said.
Most of the gun-related crimes in the last 8 weeks, like the mass shooting, were completed with licensed guns.
But authorities say that gun-related crimes only gained attention because they occurred in close succession.
"Gun-related crimes have not increased," Deputy police spokesman Kissana Phathanacharoen told Reuters.
"There are crimes that involve no weapon, and crimes that involve knives, guns and batons plus they all can kill people. It's that the (gun-related) incidents have already been happening around once."
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