The death toll from a school shooting in Thailand rose to nine on Saturday, after police said a 12-year-old girl caught up in Friday’s incident had died.
Police at Plai Bang police station in Nonthaburi Province said the girl, who had been treated at hospital with critical wounds, had died on Saturday, a day after a 14-year-old boy allegedly shot his grandparents and then killed more people at his school before turning the gun on himself.
The 14-year-old suspect wounded more than 30 people in the shooting at Debsirin Nonthaburi School, north-west of Bangkok.
As of Saturday evening, 14 victims remained in hospital, including seven who were in critical condition.
As police are questioning witnesses as part of the investigation, including the suspect’s parents, more details about the suspect’s background and the circumstances surrounding the shooting have emerged.
The shooter had watched violent content online, police say
The teenager had been living with his grandparents for 12 years after his parents’ separation, Atthapol Anusit, the deputy commissioner of Provincial Police Region 1, said on Sunday.
The teenager used a gun belonging to his grandfather, firing at least 26 rounds and carrying an additional 34 rounds of ammunition.
“According to witness interviews, the perpetrator had begun showing interest in studying the use of firearms for some time, about one to two years,” said Atthapol.
The police have interviewed 17 witnesses and found a knife in the boy’s bag and other evidence at the crime scenes included a firearm, spent cartridge cases and a personal computer.
“After examining the PC, it was found that the child had watched social media content involving violence,” Atthapol said but added there was no evidence yet that he had practiced shooting.
He said that last year a teacher had confiscated a BB gun, a type of air gun, that the boy had taken to school.
The Ministry of Education said it would develop new safety protocols over the next three months, including mental health screenings and a system to refer at-risk people to specialists, drills for emergency response plans, a drive to stamp out bullying and better detection to stop items from being taken into schools.
As Thailand’s worst mass shooting since 2022, it has reignited debate over firearms control in Southeast Asia’s largest gun-owning nation.
Thai PM vows new gun law after the shooting
Within hours of the shooting rampage, Thailand’s Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul, who tightened gun laws when he was interior minister, vowed to introduce a new law to restrict the carrying of firearms by the public.
“The new law will only allow government officials on duty to carry guns,” he told reporters on Friday but did not provide any specifics for the envisaged legislation, including whether it will tighten gun ownership requirements.
Under Thai rules, there are separate licences issued for owning and carrying firearms.
Thailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms in civilian possession, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents — the highest rate in the region by a wide margin, according to a 2017 estimate by the Small Arms Survey.
Of these, a little more than six million were registered firearms, with another four million comprising unregistered weapons, the Geneva group estimated.
Mass-shootings have also regularly occurred in Thailand, including incidents at schools, a major Bangkok mall and a 2022 killing spree in the country’s north-east that killed 36 people including 22 children.
Expert warns against loosening gun control measures
In the wake of an October 2023 shooting at a Bangkok mall, Anutin, then serving as interior minister, ordered a raft of gun control measures, including a short-term ban on new licences, import restrictions and the banning of people under 20 years old from shooting ranges.
Longer-term measures proposed included a medical certificate assessing the mental health and psychological condition of gun owners as well as a specified validity period for some gun licences.
Thailand’s current licensing regime lacks mental health screening for people applying to possess a gun, allows people as young as 20 to hold weapons and does not require periodic reassessments for licence holders, said Piyaporn Tunneekul, an associate professor at Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University.
“We only look at things like: Do you have money? Do you have a necessary reason to protect your property? Do you want it for self-defence? But in other countries, authorities say those are not good reasons,” she said.
“We need intervention, a process like other countries have. There are red-flag laws abroad,” Piyaporn said, referring to legal provisions that allow for the removal of a firearm from the environment of a person deemed at risk of harming themselves or others.
“So these events repeat but the state does nothing.”
- The death toll from the school shooting at Debsirin Nonthaburi School in Thailand rose to nine after a 12-year-old girl died from critical wounds.
- The 14-year-old shooter killed his grandparents before attacking the school, wounding more than 30 people and then shooting himself.
- The suspect had been living with his grandparents for 12 years, used his grandfather's gun, and had shown interest in firearms for one to two years.
- Thai Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul vowed to introduce a new gun law allowing only government officials on duty to carry guns.
- Thailand has about 10.3 million civilian firearms, the highest gun ownership rate in Southeast Asia, and current licensing lacks mental health screenings.
