BANGKOK: Thailand’s Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin on Wednesday vowed preventive steps after a shooting at a Bangkok shopping mall left two people dead and raised fresh questions about the country’s gun control.
Shoppers returned in dribs and drabs as the Siam Paragon mall reopened less than twenty-four hours after the shooting – the third high-profile deadly gun attack in Thailand in 4 years, according to AFP.
The shooting at one of the biggest malls in Bangkok, the most upmarket malls will come as a fresh blow to the country’s efforts to rebuild its vital tourism industry after the Covid-19 pandemic.
Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin joined a minute’s silence at the mall before offering the government’s condolences to the families of the 2 women victims — one Chinese and one from Myanmar.
The PM said that he was confident that Siam Paragon and government officials did their best to minimize the damage and casualties.
Let this be the only time this happens. The government insists that it will give priority to preventive steps, ,” he added, without providing details.
Police have charged a 14-year-old accused with premeditated murder, attempted murder, carrying and firing a gun in a public place, and owning an unlicensed firearm.
Nakarin Sukontawit, Police Major General, said the boy, a student at a $4,000-a-term private school just meters from the shopping mall, was undergoing psychiatric tests to see if he was fit to stand trial.
Investigators said on Tuesday that the boy had been undergoing treatment for mental disease but had stopped taking his medication and reported hearing voices telling him to shoot people.
Assistant National Police Chief Samran Nuanma told a media conference on Wednesday that the weapon used in the attack was a blank-firing pistol.
Samran said that, however, the barrel was modified for live shooting. Authorities will increase laws and regulations to control the use of firearms.
Past Promises of Tightening Laws in Thailand
But past promises of tightening gun rules and regulations have not prevented tragedies.
The Siam Paragon shooting came just days before the anniversary of a massacre at a nursery in northern Thailand that left thirty-sex people dead.
And in 2020, an ex-army officer gunned down twenty-nine people in a rampage at a mall in the northeastern city of Nakhon Ratchasima.
By one estimate, Thailand has ten million guns in circulation — one for every 7 citizens, and one of the highest rates of ownership in the region.
