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Thai firearms retailers pivot to bakeries after new gun-permit rules
A proposed pause on new gun purchasing and ownership permits, plus stopping permit renewals, is expected to further tighten legal gun access and pressure firearms businesses amid ongoing school shootings.
In Bangkok, a firearms shop-turned-bakery is displaying loaves where pistols and rifles once lined the glass case, illustrating how Thailand’s gun restrictions are reshaping legal gun commerce. Suchart and Friends Gun has been barred from importing firearms since a 2023 shooting at a Bangkok mall, Reuters reports.
The shop’s owner, Warintorn Boonyachai, said he started baking five months ago to cover staff salaries, while still hoping the firearm import ban would be lifted. He suggested selling guns had been less tiring than selling bread, according to Reuters, and he also owns a baking school.
Recent violence has increased pressure for additional controls. After a 14-year-old gunman killed at least eight people in shootings at his home and school outside Bangkok this month, 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.
Thititorn Bupparamanee, president of the Firearms Traders Association of Thailand, said the suspension would not address the core gun violence problem and warned that restricting public purchasing of legal guns could push some buyers toward the black market, Reuters reported.