14-year-old suspect held after at least 3 killed in Thai shopping mall shooting

Police in Thailand arrested a 14-year-old, after a shooting at a shopping mall in the capital Bangkok on Tuesday left at least three people dead and four others injured.

Local authorities held the suspect with a weapon, and are assessing exact casualties, Thailand’s Central Investigation Bureau said.

Gun ownership in the Southeast Asian country is high compared with other countries in the region.

More than 10.3 million civilians held firearms in Thailand, or around 15 guns for every 100 people, 2017 data from the Switzerland-based Small Arms Survey (SAS) said. About 6.2 million of those guns are legally registered, according to SAS.

Thailand tallies the second-highest gun homicides after the Philippines in Southeast Asia, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington’s 2019 Global Burden of Disease database.

But mass shootings in the country are rare. In October 2022, at least 36 people were killed in a gun and knife attack at a child care center in northeastern Thailand.

The massacre in Nong Bua Lamphu province was believed to be the country’s deadliest incident of its kind.