NONTHABURI, Thailand — The 12-year-old girl had been listed in critical condition since Saturday’s mass shooting at Debsirin Nonthaburi School. By Saturday afternoon, she was dead. Her death brought the toll from the worst school shooting in Thai history to eight, a tragedy that began when a 14-year-old opened fire on students and staff in a school cafeteria in Nonthaburi province, northwest of Bangkok.
The shooter’s father issued his first public statement Sunday. “I’m sorry,” he said, according to ABC News. “I’m deeply sorry to all the families.” The statement was brief. It offered no explanation for why his son had killed two grandparents at their home before traveling to the school and opening fire on children eating breakfast. The gun used was legally registered to the boy’s grandfather.
Five school staff and three students died in the attack. The eight dead included the girl who succumbed Saturday, a 12-year-old who had been among seven victims in critical condition at Nonthaburi provincial hospital. Fourteen others remained hospitalized as of Sunday; most were between 12 and 14 years old. Nonthaburi officials announced that classes at Debsirin Nonthaburi School would be suspended through August 14.
The detail that has drawn the most attention since Saturday is the weapon. The handgun used in the shooting was legally owned, registered in the grandfather’s name. Thailand has approximately 15.1 civilian firearms per 100 people, the highest rate in Southeast Asia except for the Philippines. The national firearm death rate stands at roughly 3.49 per 100,000 annually. Neither figure has historically generated sustained legislative momentum in Bangkok.
“Everyone was saddened and shocked, because it was unexpected that this would happen in Thailand,” Charin Siriananchai, a community leader in Nonthaburi, told ABC News. The sentiment ran through the city as families arrived at the hospital to retrieve the bodies of the dead, the youngest of whom had not yet turned 13.
The sequence of events on Saturday unfolded across two locations. The shooter killed his grandparents at their home before traveling to the school, where he entered the cafeteria shortly after 8 a.m. and opened fire on students and staff during breakfast. Five staff members were killed. The attack ended when the boy was subdued. He is being held under juvenile jurisdiction; no formal charges had been filed as of Sunday, and police described the investigation as active and ongoing.
Security arrangements at the Debsirin Nonthaburi campus, which serves roughly 1,800 students, are under review. School officials have not commented publicly on what, if anything, was found lacking in the procedures that morning. The Thai government has not announced any emergency policy response.
The father’s apology came hours after local media began identifying the shooter’s family. It did not address the most pressing question: how a 14-year-old gained access to a handgun, carried it to school undetected, and killed eight people before he was stopped. “I’m sorry” was what was offered. The rest remained unanswered Sunday.
Gun control advocacy groups in Thailand renewed calls after the shooting for stricter licensing requirements and mandatory secure storage laws. The country passed limited registration reforms in 2019, but the broader framework governing civilian ownership remained largely intact. Thailand has experienced mass shooting incidents before. The most severe was a 2020 attack in which a soldier killed 29 people at a shopping center in Korat. That attack produced a brief legislative conversation about military access to weapons. It did not produce new law.
Whether this one does is a question that will be decided in the weeks and months ahead, in a country that has now been forced to hold a kind of grief it had not, at this scale, been required to hold before.
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