‘OUTDATED, IN NEED OF AN OVERHAUL’
In October 2023, a 14-year-old armed with a modified blank-firing pistol killed two people at Bangkok’s Siam Paragon mall, leading the government to temporarily halt the issuance of new gun licences to the general public and target the loophole around blank-firing weapons.
These weapons could be bought much more easily than conventional firearms because they were not regulated in the same way, even though some could be modified to fire live ammunition.
Police also launched a nationwide “Gun Clearance Operation” against illegal, modified and blank guns, as well as online sellers.
A year earlier, a former police officer killed 37 people, including 24 children, in a gun-and-knife rampage centred on a childcare centre in Nong Bua Lamphu province in northeastern Thailand. The incident remains Thailand’s worst mass killing by a single perpetrator in its recent history.
Then-prime minister Prayut Chan-o-cha ordered tighter gun-ownership controls and a review of existing licence holders and applicants. The Interior Ministry also instructed authorities to check whether gun owners continued to meet licensing requirements.
And in 2020, after a soldier killed 29 people in a rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima province in northeastern Thailand, the army said it would scrap its welfare gun programme. The programme had allowed personnel to buy firearms at discounted prices, and authorities further tightened approval for soldiers purchasing personal weapons.
Despite all of these measures, Thailand’s firearm legislation is “outdated and requires a complete overhaul”, said Krisanaphong Poothakool, an independent criminologist.
“Accessibility remains remarkably easy, particularly through black markets and modified replica weapons,” he said. “Furthermore, legal penalties remain inadequate and require decisive, swift and guaranteed enforcement.”
While illegal gun possession can carry up to 10 years in prison, the maximum fine under Thailand’s decades-old firearms law is just 20,000 baht (US$600) – one of the penalties the government is now seeking to toughen.
Thailand is awash with illegal firearms. It has also struggled to keep account of where they are and who owns them, said Krisanaphong.
Data from 2017 – the most recent, but unofficial, gun estimate in Thailand – showed that Thais own approximately 10.3 million firearms.
That consisted of 6.2 million legal and 4.1 million illegal weapons, according to the Small Arms Survey, an independent global research project based in Switzerland.
No other Southeast Asian country comes close to Thailand’s estimated rate of civilian gun ownership. Per capita, Thailand’s stock was more than four times the Philippines’ and about 20 times Malaysia’s, according to the 2017 survey.
Experts cautioned that the true number is difficult to determine and could be substantially higher.
“Beyond the inability to register or track firearm locations, there is an overly accessible path to acquiring guns, loopholes between legal and illegal firearms and a severe lack of post-licensing oversight,” Trynh said.