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 regulations 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.
Selling guns is less tiring than selling bread
That looks less likely after a 14-year-old gunman killed at least eight 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.