Thailand has a gun problem – 10 million of them

ust three days after a 14-year-old opened fire at his school, killing eight people before shooting himself, another incident in the same province illustrated even more starkly Thailand’s troubled relationship with guns.

Chalong Riewrang, a 71-year-old former politician, went into the local administration office to discuss a large sum of money he says he was owed by the administration chief, Thongchai Yenprasert, a man he called his friend.

The conversation ended abruptly with Chalong pulling out a gun and firing four shots through the window of Thongchai’s car, hitting him and his driver. Thongchai later died from his wounds.

Chalong then left the scene, and phoned a startled journalist he knew who was in the middle of a live broadcast on YouTube, to tell her what had happened.

After the police intercepted him and took him to the station, he was allowed to speak to reporters, casually smoking a cigarette and seemingly unperturbed by what he had done.

He explained that he had “not intended to shoot his friend”, but opened fire when the driver also pulled a gun. The police did find two guns in the car, but said they were not in a state where they could have been fired.