Thai police to tackle illegal online gun sales

Bangkok — Thailand will close legal loopholes relating to firearm classification and online sales in its gun control efforts, its police chief said on Wednesday, a day after a teenager was held for the fatal shootings of two people at a mall.

The 14-year-old suspect allegedly used a gun that was modified and originally designed to fire blank rounds, meaning it was not classified as a lethal weapon, and it was probably bought online, Torsak Sukvimol of the Royal Thai Police said in a television interview.

Authorities were preparing to charge the teenage boy with premeditated murder on Wednesday.

There are more than 10,000 such legally imported guns in circulation in Thailand. Police will work with other government agencies to reclassify them as deadly firearms to block their import, said Torsak

“We want to make sure these guns are a controlled firearm because their modification makes them a deadly weapon,” he told Thailand’s Channel 3 television channel.

Krisanaphong Poothakool, a criminologist at Rangsit University, said modifying a blank gun is illegal but perpetrators could easily learn how to make modifications and there were criminal services offering this.

A Reuters search of e-commerce platforms Lazada and Shopee, among the most popular in Southeast Asia, on Wednesday showed several types of blank guns for sale at prices starting at about 5,000 baht ($135).

Shopee, owned by Singapores Sea and Alibaba-owned Lazada did not immediately respond to questions from Reuters.

Authorities can boost gun control by improving enforcement, including creating a faster mechanism to block websites and online services that offer to sell or modify firearms, said Krisanaphong. Political will to push for long-term gun control is essential, he said.

Torsak, which took over as top police official earlier this week, said police will form a team to tackle the illegal sale of firearms on the internet.

Existing Thai laws on the possession of illegal firearms carry a prison sentence of up to 10 years and a fine of up to 20,000 Thai baht ($540).

Laws have tightened after mass shootings in recent years in Thailand, including a requirement for a medical evaluation for those who want to buy guns or renew gun licences.

Last October, a former policeman killed 35 people, including 22 children, at a nursery in northeastern Thailand. In 2020, a soldier shot and killed at least 29 people in another northeastern Thai city.

After the October shooting, Thailand’s previous administration drafted a gun amnesty bill allowing those with unregistered weapons to register them or hand them over to authorities during a grace period. The bill, however, did not make it through parliament ahead of a May general election.

“The government should learn the lessons from past mass shooting incidents, review the proposed solutions and quickly implement them,” said Krisanaphong.

Reuters