A school outside Bangkok became the scene of Thailand’s deadliest mass shooting since 2022 after a 14-year-old student killed his grandparents, opened fire at the campus and then took his own life, police said. At least five other people were killed.
All of the victims at the school were teachers or staff, according to police. The student fired at least 26 rounds from a gun belonging to his grandfather, while 34 additional rounds were recovered, authorities said.
Students poured out of Debsirin Nonthaburi School on Bangkok’s northwestern outskirts as paramedics transported the wounded to hospital. Outside, teachers embraced one another, many crying as the scale of the violence became clear.
Photographs released by emergency workers showed one person lying on a stretcher beside an ambulance while another received treatment from a medic.
Students shelter in classroom during Thai school shooting
The shooting is the latest in a series of high-profile attacks in Thailand, a country with by far the largest civilian gun ownership total in southeast Asia and one of the highest rates per capita on the continent, according to a 2017 estimate from the Small Arms Survey.
An 18-year-old student said he first mistook the sound of gunfire for firecrackers or someone striking an object.
“I didn’t think it was a gun at first,” he said. “There were many shots: bang, bang, bang. Then it went quiet. Then it started again.”
Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong confirmed that both students and teachers were among those affected. Investigators were working to establish what prompted the attack, he told reporters.
Students and parents wait outside the school after the shooting in Bang Kruai district
The incident marks Thailand’s second school shooting this year. In February, a teacher was killed and a student wounded in an attack in the country’s south.
District authorities said Debsirin Nonthaburi School had about 3,100 students and 147 teachers during the 2025 academic year.
“This is terrible for something like this to happen,” Prime Minister Anutin Charnvirakul told reporters. “I’m sad for those who died and sad for something like this to happen in our country.”
An ambulance departs the school after the shooting
Thailand’s most lethal recent mass killing by a lone attacker occurred in 2022, when a dismissed former police officer carried out a three-hour assault with guns and knives in the northeast. Thirty-six people died, including his wife, his son and 22 children who were stabbed while sleeping at a daycare centre.
In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people during a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima, including at a shopping centre. In July last year, a gunman killed five people at a Bangkok market — among them security guards and a vendor — before ending his own life.
Another 14-year-old attacker killed two people and wounded five at a luxury Bangkok shopping centre in 2023. Police said he used a modified handgun that was probably bought online.
Following that attack, Mr Anutin, then interior minister, directed officials to introduce a series of gun-control measures. They included a temporary suspension of new licences, restrictions on imports and a ban preventing people under 20 from using shooting ranges.
Proposed longer-term rules included requiring gun owners to obtain a medical certificate covering their mental health and psychological condition, along with setting defined validity periods for certain gun licences.
The Small Arms Survey estimated that civilians in Thailand possessed about 10.3 million firearms, equivalent to roughly 15 guns for every 100 residents.
