By Juarawee Kittisilpa and Chayut Setboonsarng
BANGKOK, Aug 17 (Reuters) – Loaves of sourdough bread now fill the display window of Suchart and Friends Gun, a firearms shop-turned-bakery in Bangkok’s old quarter where pistols and rifles once lined the glass case.
Like all the gun shops in Thailand, it has been banned from importing firearms since a 2023 shooting at a Bangkok mall — one of several mass shootings, including at a school and a childcare centre, that have periodically prompted tighter regulation in a country with the second-highest private gun ownership in Asia.
Five months ago owner Warintorn Boonyachai decided to start baking bread to cover staff salaries, but would still like to see the gun-import ban lifted.
“I do still have hope, because like I’ve said, selling guns is less tiring than selling bread,” said Warintorn, who also owns a baking school.
That looks less likely after a 14-year-old gunman killed at least seven people in shootings at his home and school outside Bangkok this month, before fatally shooting himself.
In the wake of that shooting, Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul proposed a new law to suspend the issuance of new firearm purchasing permits and new gun ownership permits, and police were ordered to stop renewing permits for buying guns — measures that could further squeeze both sellers and prospective buyers out of the market.
In the capital’s historic gun district, Thititorn Bupparamanee, president of the Firearms Traders Association of Thailand, said the suspension of permits would not fix the country’s gun violence problem.
“They are not fixing the problem at the right places, because if they did, there would be less crime,” he said, adding that the ban on the public purchasing legal guns through legal means may force some people to turn to the black market.
Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms in civilian possession, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents — the second-highest rate in Asia, behind Pakistan, according to a 2017 estimate by the Small Arms Survey.
Of those, a little more than 6 million were registered firearms, with another 4 million comprising unregistered weapons, the Geneva-based group estimated.
The industry is worth about 2 billion baht ($60.40 million), Thititorn said.
One gun store that has been in business for nearly seven decades had two guns left for sale and six staff, but they said the guns couldn’t be sold and that new guns couldn’t be imported.
Staff asked not to be named because they were not authorised to speak to media.
The mother of one 14-year-old student who fled the school shooting on August 7 said she supports the right to own guns, but wants to see more controls, including on people carrying weapons outside the home.
“There definitely should be a scrutiny everywhere on weapons, because knives are also as scary.”
($1 = 33.1100 baht)
(Reporting by Juarawee Kittisilpa and Chayut Setboonsarng; Editing by Josh Smith and Sonali Paul)
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