Thai mall shooting exposes murky trade in blank handguns turned into lethal weapons

A search of Piyabut Pienpitak's (right) home in Bangkok yielded more than 40 pistol barrels and magazines to be used with blank guns so they could fire real bullets. - The Nation

BANGKOK (AP): Police in Thailand said Thursday (Oct 5) they have arrested three men they accuse of selling the handgun and ammunition used by a 14-year-old boy who allegedly killed two people and wounded five others at a shopping mall in Bangkok.

The shooting Tuesday at the Siam Paragon mall in the Thai capital has highlighted a gray area of the gun trade: the sale of handguns originally manufactured to shoot blanks but which can be modified to fire live ammunition. Thai police identified the gun used in Tuesday’s shootings as one of these so-called blank, or blank-firing, handguns.