It could also further dent the idyllic reputation, already hit by crime directed against foreign visitors, that will draw some 20 million tourists this year, a mainstay of the economy. He now has three.Įscalating gun crime could put off companies looking to set up in a country that prides itself on its friendly image as the “Land of Smiles” and is recovering from devastating 2011 floods. “People pull out their guns at a moment’s notice.”Ĭhuwit never owned a gun before this year. “Thailand has become a Wild West movie,” says politician Chuwit Kamolvisit, a former massage-parlour tycoon who says he used to pay off local police to run his seedy businesses. Others say that the seeming impunity enjoyed by the wealthy has prompted some to take the law into their own hands. Unrest culminated in a two-month stand-off in 2010 between government troops and “red shirt” protesters backing Thaksin and clashes that killed 91 people. Some blame the rise in gun crime on political instability that has gripped Thailand since a 2006 coup that removed Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra. Witnesses said it resembled a scene from a Hollywood blockbuster.Ī tourist haven and regional base for multinational companies, Thailand has the highest number of guns in civilian hands in Southeast Asia - almost four times more than the Philippines, a country notorious for violent gun crime. In one incident at a busy intersection, a computer repairman shot dead two people and took a third hostage. Similar altercations have become a focus of public attention, with shootings affecting seemingly ordinary folk.
A shopkeeper shows a gun for sale in Bangkok October 12, 2012.
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