Suspected shooter fired at senior provincial officer, according to police
\n Bangkok
\nA gunman was arrested after firing shots at \u200ca local government office on the outskirts of Thailand\u2019s capital on Monday, officials said, just days after a teenager\u2019s killing spree at a school in the same province reignited debate over gun control.
\nThe suspected shooter, a former lawmaker, fired at a senior provincial official and his driver, said Major General \u200bDejrapee Kongdee, the police commander of Nonthaburi, which borders Bangkok.
\n\u201cThere were two people wounded, who have been sent \u200bto hospital for treatment,\u201d Dejrapee told Reuters.
\nThailand has been reeling from a 14-year-old boy\u2019s rampage on Friday \u2014 first at his home and then at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School \u2014 that left nine people dead, including the shooter, and over \u200b20 wounded in the country\u2019s deadliest mass shooting in nearly four years.
\nThai school children returned to their classrooms on Monday, some going through \u200bmetal detectors and other checks, as Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul reiterated his intention to tighten gun controls in the wake of Friday\u2019s school shooting.
\nAt Debsirin School in Bangkok, a sister institution to where Friday\u2019s shooting took place, authorities installed metal detectors and stepped up security as students returned to classrooms \u200bafter the weekend.
\nSchool director Withan Promsintusak said officials had acted immediately after the attack, introducing weapons screening to reassure parents \u200band protect students.
\n\u201cWe never imagined that a school, which should be the safest place, is where something like this would happen,\u201d he said.
\nThidaratSongrat, \u200cthe 54-year-old grandmother of a student, said weapons screening was necessary because schools could not otherwise determine whether students might be carrying dangerous objects.
\nNew school safety protocol
\nFollowing Friday\u2019s shooting, Thailand\u2019s Education Ministry has said it will develop new school safety protocols over the next three months, including mental health screenings, emergency response drills, measures to tackle bullying and improved detection of weapons and other \u200bprohibited items.
\nThai Premier Anutin also \u200bordered tougher enforcement against people carrying guns in public and said police would set up checkpoints as part of a crackdown, which would include tightening controls on the possession, carrying and use of firearms.
\n\u201cNo one \u200bhas the right to carry a firearm, especially in a public place,\u201d Anutin told reporters, \u200badding that claiming a weapon was for self-defence was no justification.
\nThailand had an estimated 10.3 million firearms in civilian possession, equating to around 15 guns per 100 residents, the highest rate in Southeast Asia by a wide margin, according to a 2017 estimate by the Small Arms Survey.
\nThe \u200bcountry\u2019s current licensing regime lacks mental health screening for people applying to \u200bpossess a gun, allows people as young as 20 to hold weapons and does not require periodic reassessments for licence holders, according to experts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Suspected shooter fired at senior provincial officer, according to police Bangkok A gunman was arrested after firing shots at \u200ca local government office on the outskirts of Thailand\u2019s capital on Monday, officials said, just days after a teenager\u2019s killing spree at a school in the same province reignited debate over gun control. The suspected shooter, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":561312,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-561294","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world"],"yoast_head":"\n