The Daily Mail: "Bangkok mall shooting: 'Schoolboy aged 14' opens fire in Thai shopping mall, killing three people - hundreds of terrified shoppers flee in panic or hide in shops." Per the article, "[t]he schoolboy went on the shooting rampage with a Glock 19 handgun inside the Siam Paragon building in the centre of the Thai capital on Tuesday afternoon shortly after 4pm local time, police said." I find it hard to believe that a 14-year old boy was able to obtain a handgun since Thailand requires a special license to obtain a handgun, and we all know that criminals don't break firearm laws. But all sarcasm aside, Thailand is a perfect example of how gun control laws don't work: the country of approximately 66 million people has approximately 6 million legally registered firearms and an estimated 4 million illegal firearms.
Update: Looking to find out more about gun control in Thailand, I came across this October 6, 2022, article ("Thailand's gun culture and past shootings") from Reuters, apparently written in the aftermath of another mass shooting there. It relates several prior mass shootings, much worse than that of today. The October 2022 shooting, it reports, involved "[a] former policeman [who] killed 34 people including 22 children in a gun rampage at a daycare centre in eastern Thailand on Thursday, later shooting dead his wife and child at their home before turning his weapon on himself, police said." As for prior incidents, it relates:
- In February 2020, a soldier angry over a property deal gone sour killed at least 29 people and wounded 57 in a rampage that spanned four locations in and around the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima.
Most of the victims were at the Terminal 21 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 dead.
- Just 10 days after that mass shooting, a man killed his ex-wife and wounded another person at a shopping centre in Bangkok.
- In June 2021, a former soldier fired gunshots in a coronavirus field hospital near Bangkok, killing a 54-year-old patient after earlier shooting dead a convenience store employee. The 23-year-old gunman had believed the patients in the hospital were drug addicts and said he hated drug addicts.
The article also notes that "[g]un laws are quite strict in Thailand."
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