October 23, 2023
BANGKOK – Retired government officer Phairoj Kullavanijaya spends most of his days working on his fruit farm in Chachoengsao in south-central Thailand – an area most consider to be generally safe.
But the 68-year-old feels more at ease with his 9mm pistol at his side.
“I’ve always been interested in guns. It’s natural that a man would want to own a gun for protection,” said Mr Phairoj, who used to work in the Ministry of Commerce.
He bought the firearm after retiring in 2010 through a scheme that allows government employees to buy guns at a discounted rate, although he said he has never fired his weapon outside a shooting range.
His love for guns has not changed, despite a string of mass shooting incidents in recent years.
The latest is the Siam Paragon shooting in Bangkok’s bustling shopping belt earlier in October that killed three people and left several others injured.
It shocked both locals and tourists, and not just because the shooter was a 14-year-old who used an illegal gun.
It also cast a spotlight on the prevalence of guns, both legal and illegal, in what many consider a relatively peaceful country, and the deep-rooted and somewhat uneasy familiarity that Thais have with firearms.
“Most Thai people do not fear guns,” said Mahidol University criminology researcher Anchistha Suriyavorapunt, adding that gun culture is particularly ingrained among those in the rural provincial areas.
“They don’t have confidence in crime control policy to protect them, their possessions or their land, so they prefer to carry a gun for assurance.”
October’s shooting is Thailand’s third major mass shooting incident in three years.
In October 2022, a former police officer shot and stabbed 36 people, most of them pre-school children, in the north-eastern province of Nong Bua Lamphu. And in 2020, a former army officer killed 29 in a mass shooting attack in a shopping mall in Nakhon Ratchasima.
While such mass shooting incidents are less common than in other countries such as the United States, gun-related killings that stem from personal disputes or illicit drug or gang activity commonly make the local headlines in Thailand.
“The idea of guns is really not unusual for Thais,” said Police Major Chavanut Janekarn, a lecturer at Thammasat University, while pointing out that the Bangkok incident was one of the rare times when firearm violence took place in a tourist area.
Several streets down from Bangkok’s Chinatown lies the heart of the capital’s retail firearms trade in the Wang Burapha neighbourhood. It is known as the gun district, where shotguns, rifles and ammunition are openly displayed in the glass windows of dozens of shops.
The threat of gun violence is something locals are aware of, and many private and public organisations, including shopping malls and schools, hold regular safety training that includes active shooter drills.
According to estimates by gunpolicy.org, a gun control portal hosted by the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health, in 2021 there were seven million guns in Thailand, with more than one million of them undocumented or illegal.
Experts believe these numbers are conservative and without a proper local tracking system, even the exact number of legal guns is difficult to pin down.
“What we know is that the illegal gun market worldwide is growing, so the number of illegal firearms in Thailand is probably higher,” said Pol Maj Chavanut, highlighting how the authorities recorded more than 80,000 illegal gun offences in 2022, twice the number in 2021.
On average, about 100,000 new guns are legally registered in Thailand a year.
While this has been on the downward trend, Pol Maj Chavanut said this figure is still high for a country of about 70 million people.
The process to get a legal gun licence can take anywhere from two to six months, and requires documents including bank statements and letters of guarantee from employers or community leaders.
No one below the age of 20 is allowed to own a gun, but minors are generally allowed to handle firearms if supervised.
“The rules are strict. But if you have a proper job, no criminal record and enough money, it is relatively easy to get approved for a licence,” said Pol Maj Chavanut.
A Glock brand pistol can cost about US$400 (S$550) in the US, but a similar gun can cost up to 85,000 baht (S$3,200) in Thailand.
However, a government welfare gun scheme allows state workers, including civil servants and law enforcement, to purchase firearms for personal protection at about 40 per cent cheaper.
“This programme has introduced many guns into Thailand,” said Pol Maj Chavanut, adding that there have been cases where officers who bought their weapons under the programme sell their weapons on the black market for fast cash.
In the Siam Paragon incident, the teenage shooter, who the authorities said had existing mental health issues, used a blank gun that had been modified to shoot live bullets. He bought the gun online.
Blank guns, usually used on film sets, along with BB guns, are categorised as imitation weapons in Thailand and do not need a licence.
However, developments in gun knowledge and illegal access to firearm parts can turn these “toy guns” into deadly weapons.
“There are videos teaching people how to do this online… The authorities should have clamped down on this a long time ago,” said Mr Danai Smuthkochorn, 42, the founder of Team Tango, an active lifestyle brand that also teaches self-defence and firearm courses.
In the days following the shooting in Bangkok, Interior Minister Anutin Charnvirakul said gun control rules will be tightened.
Proposed measures include suspending the issuing of gun licences for new applicants, registering of real and imitation firearms, as well as stricter monitoring of the industry.
In October 2022, a similar discussion over firearms regulation and mental health arose after the Nong Bua Lamphu rampage. There was a national outpouring of horror and grief, and the authorities pledged changes to gun laws.
“But one year later, nothing has changed,” said Pol Maj Chavanut, who believes current gun laws are not strict enough.
Still, those in the legal gun industry seem to be feeling the pressure. Several gun shop owners and shooting ranges, including the Firearms Traders Association of Thailand, declined comment when approached by The Straits Times.
Mr Danai said most people in the industry do not want to draw too much attention, as they fear that the spotlight could bring tougher regulation.
“If the laws for (legal) firearms get any stricter, the next step will be banning civilian ownership completely,” he said.
Mr Danai bought his first firearm after coming face-to-face with a home intruder about a decade ago.
While the police arrived to his Bangkok home in eight minutes and no one was seriously hurt, he felt defenceless.
“Criminals will likely have their own illegal weapons. What will you do if they use it against you?” he said.
Instead of tightening regulation, Mr Danai said the authorities must enforce existing laws on gun control and also crack down on other related illicit markets such as the online gun trade, drugs and financial crime.
Meanwhile, introducing a database to track legal firearms can be the first major step in preventing the flouting of gun licensing rules and ownership, said Dr Anchistha of Mahidol University.
“Now that there is a wave of social pressure on gun control, I hope the authorities will ‘wake up’ and tackle the problems of illegal guns. If not, it will be a crisis,” she added.
Mr Phairoj, the retired government officer, does take precautions when handling his firearm, and is careful to store the weapon separately from the bullets.
“I’m not against tighter regulation (for legal) guns. But those who want to commit illegal acts will always find ways to get illegal weapons. So that is the problem that must be solved,” he said.