BANGKOK. March 16 (Bloomberg): Thailand plans to offer an amnesty for gun owners who haven’t registered their firearms following last year’s mass shooting that left about two dozen preschoolers dead.
The cabinet cleared a proposal that will allow owners of unregistered firearms to have their weapons officially recorded within 180 days without charges, Ratchada Thanadirek, a government spokesperson, said in statement Wednesday.
The bill also allows owners to hand over unlawful ammunition to the authorities within the same period without penalty, said Ratchada.
The proposed legislation, once approved, will boost the government’s capacity to tighten the guardrails on gun ownership and better monitor the movement of firearms going into Thailand, she said.
The South-East Asian nation is tightening rules on guns after a former cop used an automatic weapon in a mass shooting incident in northeastern Thailand last year, killing at least 36 people, mostly children. - Bloomberg
