Arkady

I am wondering what level of domestic business PP can do in Thailand. The number of times I have seen a Thai online merchant accepting PP can be counted on the fingers of mutilated hand. Thai SME vendors also hardly ever accept credit or debit cards. Everyone transfers the money electronically and sends the slip by LINE. Not protection for scammed buyers but great for vendors with no fees or charge backs. For e-commerce I would guess that PP has only been used by Thais and foreigners who have credit cards and buy stuff from overseas vendors. A very small percentage of Thais do this and a large percentage of foreign residents for obvious reasons. While they were offshore, you couldn't link to a Thai bank account. So it was limited to credit cards. Coming onshore and being able to link to Thai bank accounts, I guess they hope they will be able to penetrate the domestic market. But it does seem a very long shot. Anyway the share price has been telling us that PP has been going down the tubes for a while. The only innovation I can see is their compliance with Thai regulations and coming onshore but this is negative as far as I can see. Their market niche for me was largely that they were offshore and not part of the Thai nanny state regulatory environment.

I just received an email from PayPal advising me that, despite having already agreed to their terms for re-registering my international account with PayPal Thailand, I now have to agree to a completely new set of agreements and register with Thailand's national ID verification system, NDID through a Thai bank, by 30 November to continue using my account. One thing that caught my eye in the Q & A linked to the email was this. 14) I am not a Thai national and cannot enroll in NDID. Will I be able to use a PayPal personal account in Thailand? PayPal is using the NDID platform as a sole means of verifying the identity of customers seeking to use PayPal Thailand personal accounts (including existing account holders whose accounts will be transferred to PayPal Thailand). For the time being, a Thai national ID is required to enroll in NDID (other forms of identification which do not have a 13-digit Thai national ID number, such as a non-Thai passport, work permit, non-Thai Identification card (pink ID), or Thai Permanent Resident Permit cannot be accepted). So PayPal has now decided to ditch completely all customers residing in Thailand who are not Thai citizens, including permanent residents and expats with work permits. If you are still reading, there are also a number of new restrictions for Thai citizens, e.g. no more payments between friends and family. It is not clear to me what the implications of having to register through a Thai bank may be, since my account has never been linked to any bank account. Personally I have stopped using PayPal for anything where an alternative exists already. There are just a few sellers in the US that only accept PayPal and I have never used it for receiving money. Even though I do have a Thai ID card, I think this is complete BS and no longer wish to have anything to do with PayPal.

Now it is pretty clear what they are trying to do and I have the sense this time that they could get it done. This is nothing new as the Land Code in Section 96 bis was amended in 1999 by the Chuan government to allow foreigners to own 1 rai of land if they put THB 40 million into approved investments. The law provided for much of the key details to be filled in with ministerial regulations. When the were issued several years later, huge backtracking was evidence because the regulations specified approved investments that did not exist. So no one was able to use this law to buy land. But it remains on the books and can easily be activated. The government can issue a one page decree to create new ministerial regulations that will bring this law to life for the first time. This will avoid the painstaking process of getting completely new amendments through parliament against political opposition and dealing with the public backlash as it grinds through its three readings. Not to mention that the government has no time to pass any new legislation before its time will be up. Think of it like the legalisation of cannabis. A one page decree followed by a 120 waitiing period and they're done without many Thais even noticing. They wake up 4 months later and find foreigners are allowed to own land. What they can't change without going through the parliamentary process is what is already in the law, e.g. ministerial approval is required for each transaction and purchases can only be made in Bangkok, Pattaya or areas designated as residential zones throughout the country. The ministerial approval will probably make it unviable for those without the highest level connections. What seller is going to wait around for months or years for that? But they can make the investment conditions viable. In 1999 the intention was to get foreigner to invest mainly in special real estate funds designed to help out the crippled property industry but by the time the regulations came out these fund were no longer being issued. The BOI was empowered to designate alternative qualifying investments but declined to do so. An easy way would be to designate investments in any BOI promoted company or any stocks listed on the SET. Unlike the now redundant provisions in the Land Code for foreigners to own land under international treaties owners, there is no provision for foreign heirs to inherit the land. So presumably the estate would have 12 months to sell to a Thai buyer, as in the case of foreign heirs of a Thai citizen. The treaty laws allowed foreign heirs to inherit as long as they were also qualified to hold land under the relevant treaty. This is the current law. Land Code (Added by Land Code Amendment Act 1999) Section 96 bis The provisions prescribing the acquisition of land by foreigners by virtue of the provisions of a treaty under first paragraph of Section 86 shall not apply to the foreigners who bring in the capital for investment more than forty million Baht as prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations whereas the acquisition of land for purpose of residence shall not exceed one rai and shall be approved by the Minister. The acquisition of land by foreigners under paragraph one shall be in accordance with the rules, procedures, and conditions prescribed in the Ministerial Regulations. The essential issues shall be included in the Ministerial Regulations as follows. (1) The type of business in which the foreigners invest that economically and socially benefits the country or which is declared by the Board of Investment as eligible for the application of the investment promotion under the law thereon. (2) The period of maintaining the investment shall not be less than three years. (3) The land that the foreigners may acquire shall be within the locality of Bangkok Metropolitan Administration, the City of Pattaya, Municipality, or the zone designated to be the residential area under the law on city planning. Section 96 ter Any foreigner who is granted to acquired land under Section 96 bis shall, if fails to comply with the rules or conditions prescribed in paragraph two of Section 96 bis in the Ministerial Regulations, dispose of the land being under his/her right within the time period prescribed by the Director-General which is not later than a hundred and eighty days but not longer than one year. If such time period elapses, the Director-General shall have power to dispose of such land. If the land granted to be acquired by the foreigner under Section 96 bis is not used for purpose of residence within two years from the registration date of acquisition, the Minister shall have power to dispose of such land.

This was true once but those lawyers are out of date. The Treaty was revised in 1966 and the right to own land was deleted at the request of the Thai side, while the US side raised no objections as they were of the opinion that US citizens and corporates at the time had little interest in owning land in Thailand, a country that looked like it could easily fall under communist rule. The US side was also persuaded by the Thai government that Thai small land holders, particularly upcountry, were a key bedrock against communism and that foreign land ownership could cause resentment and upset this dynamic. In the previous version of the treaty signed in 1920 US citizens were allowed to own land in Thailand, as long as Thais were allowed to own land in the states they came from. This provision had been insisted on by the Thai side because many US states had iniquitous provisions preventing Asians from owning land until the Supreme Court deemed these laws unconstitutional in 1958. There was a great deal of fear and resentment against Chinese and Japanese immigrants in the US and states enacted laws to prevent Asians from owning land to discourage them from settling. Federal law also preventing them from gaining citizenship in the early 20th century which was used as the basis of these land laws. The residual wording in the Land Code re treaty ownership of land is still there, even though the other 12 foreign treaties that permitted foreign land ownership had all be revoked and not renewed by 1970. The US was the only foreign power that had bargaining power over Thailand by that stage and the Thais knew that, if they could get the US to give up it land ownership rights, the other countries would be forced to follow suit. The treaty owned land was grandfathered when the treaties were revoked and up until the late 80s there were still some notable treaty owned plots in Bangkok. HSBC and Standard Chartered Bank had lavish managers' houses in Sathorn and Wireless Roads respectively, although they head been divided into flats for senior management by the tme they fell under the wrecking ball. East Asiatic Co Ltd owned a prime property on the river that was originally godowns and is now Asiatique. There is probably more but the only remaining treaty owned land I am aware of today is the British Club on Silom Road which is owned by its ordinary members.

You're lucky you got the usufruct. Some land offices, particularly upcountry, will simply refuse to do it and the director of registrations has the discretion to do whatever he likes where foreigners are involved. How easy it would be enforce a usufruct against a hostile Thai wife or ex or her heirs, if she is deceased particularly if the property is in their village, would depend on individual cases. And yes you should do it before you are married, if possible, because the Civil & Commercial Code provides for annulment of a contract between husband and wife, if one of them can convince the judge they were taken advantage of by the other. Some can still get away with using Thai companies but this has been made much harder since the Interior Minister issued new instructions to land offices to try to prevent foreigners from using a corporate ownership structure. Basically the land officers were ordered to reject any transfers to companies that any overt or suspected foreign involvement. Thai nominees can be quizzed as to what is the business plan of the company and why do they want to invest their entire paid up capital in a resort villa with infinity pool.

As luck would have it the provision already exists in the Land Code - Section 96 bis, as amended in 1999, allows an alien who invests THB 40 million in certain approved investments is permitted with permission of the minister to own 1 rai of land for residential purposes in certain zones. So it could easily be updated by just a few changes of wording here and there. But wait a minute. The 1999 provision was effectively sabotaged by the failure to publish the enabling ministerial regulations for several years, the expiry of qualifying real estate investment mutual funds before the regulations were issued and the consequent failure to make any new authorised investments available. Thus, as far as I know, no foreigner has ever been able to purchase land under the current Section 96 bis, although many tried. Let's hope they have better luck next time, if they do update the amendment. But it seemed that the initial proposal as part of the new visa offerings to wealthy foreigners had been dropped for fear of a local backlash. Perhaps someone is talking out of turn by trying to revive this proposal. I expect realtors would support it but virtually no Thais who are not in the real estate sector.

Looking briefly through the history of Thai cannabis legislation I see there was a Cannibis Act of 1934 that was repealed on the promulgation of the Narcotics Act 1979 which included all parts of cannabis and hemp plants and their extracts for total prohibition in Category 5. Under the Canabis Act 1934 it was considered a medicinal herb and the law was all about licensing for sellers. Plus ça change. After 43 years of prohibition which apparently achieved nothing Thailand is now reverting to the status quo of 88 years ago.

I have only started looking into the legal aspects of cannabis in Thailand in the last few days out of curiosity. I have a question for those who know more about it. Is hashish considered an extract over 0.2%? I believe it is made of pressed cannabis resin. Therefore it is not strictly speaking an extract like cannabis oil. However, it hasn't appeared on any of the dispensary price lists I have seen which leads me to think it might be considered an extract. The resin in Thailand may just be left with the buds to increase their potency.

The Cannabis and Hemp Bill seems to fill in a lot of the details of licensing, registration for home growers & etc. Also the ban on sale to under 20s, pregnant and lactating women (how to know if they are in the early stages of pregnancy or lactating?). I read in one report that import of a small quantity for personal use carried on the person will be allowed. It will be interesting to see if that makes it through parliament into the final version. It is quite common in Thai legislation for a law to be promulgated or amended with enabling legislation to follow. That happens with every constitution with organic laws filling in the details later. It has also happened with amendments to the Land Code, Working of Aliens Act and many other laws. Sometimes this laws cannot be put into effect at all without the enabling legislation, e.g. the constitution. In other cases they can. The Working of Aliens Act stipulated that the list of reserved professions would be amended by a ministerial decree within 12 months but that amendment was never issued and the law was revoked and replaced by a Royal Decree without any revision to the list of reserved professions. In this case one could argue it was inappropriate to amend the Narcotics Act by deleting cannabis except extracts over 0.2% from Category 5 without the enabling legislation. However, I think we can assume this was a case of political expediency. Anutin had the power the amend the Narcotics Act with approval from the Narcotics Committee simply by issuing a one page ministerial order. The Cannabis and Hemp Bill had to be drafted at length, reviewed by the Juridicial Council and go through three House readings (it is has just passed the first reading). With the government coming to the end of its term and with the risk of early elections, there was and still is no guarantee the Cannabis and Hemp Bill would be passed before the next elections. Waiting for this Anutin would have risked going to the polls with his key election pledge unfulfilled. Cannabis legalization must have been the main attraction of the MoPH to Anutin. Who would have guessed back in 2019 he was going to have to deal with a pandemic? With the pandemic and vaccines starting to recede in the rear view mirror, at least for now, Anutin is coming through as a man who, for better or wore, delivers his promises which could put him in a good position to become a future PM.

A Google translation of the report on the bill from the Parliament website. https://www.parliament.go.th/section77/survey_detail.php?id=193 The Draft of the Marijuana Act, Hemp, B.E. .... proposed by Mr. Anutin Chanvirakul, member of the Council (representatives of the people and the committee, has the following important points: (1) stipulating that the Minister, with the approval of the Committee, has the power to prescribe marijuana, hemp (draft Article 6) (2) Prescribing the production of herbal products, drugs, food, cosmetics, medical devices Hazardous substances used in the household and public health by using cannabis, hemp as raw materials or components in the finished product of the producer shall be in accordance with the law on that matter (Draft Article 7). (3) to establish a committee called the “Hemp Cannabis Committee” comprising the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Public Health; be the chairman of the board Secretary-General of the Food and Drug Administration Being a member and secretary (draft section ???? (4) to designate the Cannabis Hemp Committee to have duties and powers, for example, to formulate policies and measures to promote research and development on the use of cannabis, hemp both in medicine and industry, giving opinions, recommendations or recommendations to the Minister. or the licensor in the execution of this Act and the determination of tetrahydrocannabinol (tetrahydrocannabinal) in hemp, etc. (Draft Article 14) (5) stipulating that those wishing to produce, import, export or sell must obtain a license from the licensor (draft section 15). (6) requiring the person wishing to cultivate and planting must notify the information recipient who has issued the information receipt. to be able to proceed (draft article 18). (7) Assign officials, persons, organizations or agencies concerned to assess, examine and consider granting permission (draft Article 21). (8) prescribing that the fees under (8) (9) (10) at the rate of fees annexed to this Act shall be vested in the Food and Drug Administration (Draft Section 23). (9) to prescribe any licensee who violates or fails to comply with this Act give the licensor a warning or the licensor with the approval of the Commission suspends the license or revoke the license as appropriate in the case (draft section 25) (10) stipulates that the person whose license has been suspended may not apply for any license during the suspension period (draft section 26). (11) to prescribe any informer who violates or fails to comply with this Act; or ministerial regulations or announcements issued under this Act have the recipient notify him to give a warning or revoke the information receipt as appropriate in the case (draft section 27). (12) prohibiting any person from advertising unless receiving a license from the licensor (Draft Section 28). (13) stipulates that in case of violation Grant the licensor the power to order the advertiser to take any action such as editing the text, prohibiting the use of the text. Suspension of advertising, etc. (Draft Article 29) (14) assign competent officials to have powers, for example, to enter a place of production Place of import, place of export, place of sale or entry into a vehicle carrying marijuana, hemp, etc. (Draft Article 31). (15) stipulates that in the performance of duties The competent official must present the competent official identification card to the person concerned (draft section 32). (16) prescribing in the event that the licensor or the information receiver does not issue a license or information receipt Applicant or informant has the right to appeal in writing to the Minister within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notice of non-issuance of a license or a notification receipt (draft section 34). (17) to prescribe a licensee whose license has been suspended The license or the notification receipt has been revoked has the right to appeal in writing to the Minister within thirty days from the date of receipt of the notification of the suspension of the permit. Revocation of a license or a notification receipt, as the case may be (draft section 35) (18) prohibiting licensees from selling marijuana, hemp for consumption to persons such as persons under twenty years of age, pregnant women, lactating women, etc. (Draft Article 37). (19) Any person who produces, imports, exports, sells without permission under Section 18 paragraph one shall be liable to imprisonment for a term not exceeding three years. or a fine not exceeding three hundred thousand baht or both to be fined (Draft Article 38) (20) stipulates that any person who violates section 37 shall be liable to a fine not exceeding thirty thousand baht (draft section 40). people involved Ministry of Health Food and Drug Administration Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation ministry

Here is link to RG announcement and a Google translation. T_0009.PDF (soc.go.th) Announcement of the Ministry of Public Health About Controlled Herbs (Cannabis) 2016 Considering that cannabis is an herb that is worth studying or researching is important. economic for the benefit of protecting and promoting sustainable use By virtue of Section 4, Section 44, Section 45 (3) and (5) of the Act Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine, 1999, Minister of Public Health By the advice of the Committee on Protection and Promotion of Thai Traditional Medicine Wisdom therefore announced as follows verse 1 Give cannabis or cannabis extract which is a plant in the genus Cannabis, is a controlled herb verse 2 Allowing persons aged twenty years and over to possess, utilize, look after, maintain Moving, distributing, controlled herbs in accordance with the regulations 1, except for the following acts: (1) public use by smoking (2) utilization for pregnant or lactating women (3) sales to people who are under the age of more than twenty years Pregnant or lactating women R verse 3 allow medical practitioners to Thai traditional medicine practitioner Practitioner of applied Thai traditional medicine practitioner in the field of traditional Chinese medicine and Folk healers according to the law on Thai traditional medicine professions can take advantage of herbal control according to 1 to their patients verse 4 Allowing patients under Article 3 to possess, move, take care of, store, use in the amount paid for for use for thirty days. verse 5 This announcement shall come into force from the day following the date of its publication in the Government Gazette. announce As of June 16, 2013 5 Anutin Charnvirakul Minister of Health

I am glad you mentioned these two vintage .38 Special Mid-Range pistols because I had never heard of them and they are quite interesting. They were designed for bulls eye match shooting and It seems the S&W 52 was made in the S&W Performance Center unit in the days when that meant rigorous fitting and testing of each model (nowadays Performance Center at S&W just means a small shop at the factory where they fix defective PC models made on the regular assembly line that have been returned for repair under warranty - a fat lot of use if you bought one overseas). I am sure it was the same case with the Colt but neither S&W or Colt employ any of those old world gunsmiths capable of this type of work any more. Making a pistol shoot rimmed revolver wadcutters is entirely feasible, if it is specifically designed for that round and is painstaking fitted and tested at the factory. Of course it can only take that WC ammo and cannot shoot round nosed .38s. As far as pistols shooting revolver ammo are concerned, Coonan makes a semi-auto pistol in .357 magnum. Of course it can only shoot that and can't use .38 Special. I have seen one in a Bangkok gunshop for around 230,000 baht. And the Desert Eagle .44 magnum is also available for, I guess, over 200k. I have fired the Desert Eagle and it is so heavy that there is little felt recoil. But these pistols that can only shoot expensive revolver ammo are not for me. However I would love to have a S&W Model 52. People who have them in good condition say they can still shoot an under 2" group at 50 yards and the ammo is readily available at any range in Thailand and relatively inexpensive. If you see one for sale here legally, let me know.

9mm wadcutters do exist but I have never seen them in Thailand and I don't think any of the Thai manufacturers make them, although I could be wrong. They may work in some semi-auto pistols but are likely to have trouble getting up the feed ramp in most. Anyway there would be no demand for them, given that all Thai manufacters produce various models of 9mm lead round nose practice ammo, coated or uncoated, that feed as well as full metal jacket. For .38 revolvers it is different because wadcutters are the standard practice ammo in Thailand and most of the round nose stuff is full metal jacket and much more expensive with more recoil, although there are some lower powered coated lead round nose .38 rounds available from NRC and maybe others. These are good for competition because the wadcutters are difficult to speed load as you fiddle about trying to get them into the cylinder. It is possible that the army is reloading 9mm wadcutters at your range and, since you say they work in a Glock, they might work in the Glock 19 used in the accident. It is illegal but the cops are unlikely to cause problems for soldiers reloading at an army base. In the past there was .308 rifle ammo reloaded by the army at some of their rifle ranges but recently the Thai ammo manufacturers got approval from the government to sell locally made .308 and .223 rifle ammo to licensed ranges and they are trying to improve their quality to match standard. So no need for the army to reload and sell to civvies any more. If they are reloading 9mm wadcutters it is probably cheaper and easier for them. They can use cases picked up off the ground and maybe cut down the .38 wadcutter bullets to put in them. I have been through the gamut of revolver and semi-auto handgun training and competition in Thailand but have now gravitated more towards more towards long guns: shotguns, semi-auto sub guns and rifles. Easier to hit the target.

Thai Enquirer got it wrong. The law was not changed to prevent foreigners from registering firearms in 2017 because the bill never even reached parliament. I have seen several articles with the same misinformation. They just quote other articles that assumed the amendment would go through without doing any fact checking. It is pretty easy to pull out the Firearms Act and see nothing was changed. In fact I know several foreigners who have registered firearms after 2017.

Wadcutters in .38 special are standard fare for revolvers at Thai ranges. Relatively under powered but a lot cheaper and make a clean round hole. 9mm wadcutters do exist but none of the Thai ammo manufacturers make them as they won't feed in most semi-autos. They would work in 9mm revolvers but there are very few of them and they are used for IPSC, so they also need to be round nosed to feed into the cylinder fast with a speed loader. Oddly enough semi wadcutters are popular in .45 ACP caliber for semi autos in Thailand. They have a conical bullet with a flat nose that also makes a nice round hole and feed in most but not all .45 semi-autos. I guess semi-wadcutters are not practical for 9mm.

These is a pretty good model for competition but the pretty turquoise aluminium grips are too narrow and slippery for big hands and need to be changed out. Designed for IPSC it is unfortunately 3oz too heavy for IDPA. It is a heavy pistol that shoots very accurately in the right hands with hardly any recoil due to its weight. For competition the springs can be changed giving a really light crisp pull in single action. CZ also sells these lighter springs but doesn't fit them in the guns for legal liability purposes. Even if the springs are changed for competition, in my opinion this is a safer weapon than the Glock used in the accident because it has a safety and, like the Glock is double action, at least for the first shot, which means and relatively long and heavy trigger pull, making accidental discharges less likely. Glocks are very popular in Thailand as they relatively inexpensive in a market where retail prices are marked up several times. But I am not a fan and think they are not very safe. There have been many accidental shootings by police in the US with Glocks because of the lack of safety. In the hands of a nervous cop with adrenaline running the 5.5lb trigger pull can go off unintentionally like a hair trigger. Possibly this is what happened here, if the student had her finger on the trigger before she was ready to fire and muzzled the instructor maybe swinging around. In addition most Glock models require you to pull the trigger to remove the slide and this has caused the demise of many US cops in stations while they sit with their colleagues who are cleaning their Glocks. Another issue is that Glock owners buy off label disconnectors and springs to slicken up their weapons and these modifications can cause the timing to go awry resulting in a round being detonated before it is fully in the chamber. This caused an accident at a range her a few years ago when a visiting US shooting fired a borrowed gun. The slide and receiver blew apart causing him fortunately minor injuries. In view of the above it is worth remembering to wear proper safety glasses, if you visit a range, even if you are just watching others shoot. I know someone who got a serious eye injury because he was just wearing regular sunglasses to shoot and he got a similar accident to the one described above.

Indeed there was a bill to amend the Firearms Act so that Thai nationality would required for future registrations of firearms but the bill never made it to parliament before the last general election and the current didn't attempt to revive it. So, as the law stands, foreigners are still permitted to register firearms in their own names. A work permit and tabian baan are required and PR is preferred but not essential. It is up to local licensing authorities to issue or not. That means Bangkok will often issue a permit to a foreigner, if he has a good reason in their opinion, such as home defence or shooting sports, and they are satisfied he can speak enough Thai to follow instructions on the range and looks a respectable type of person. Most other provinces will probably not issue to foreigners and many are usually difficult for Thais too. Bangkok licensing is done by the Interior Ministry while in the provinces is under district offices with the provincial governor able to make regulations more strict than the ministry's but not more relaxed.

9mm Browning Hi-Power the first firearm I ever owned. An effective military side arm and used to be very popular with civilian shooters in the US but now there are many other choices. It has a very heavy, gritty trigger but that's OK for a service weapon. It has a magazine disconnector that prevents it from firing without the magazine in, to prevent accidents when soldiers think it's safe because they removed the mag without taking into account a round still up the spout. This feature makes the trigger even gritter but can be removed if you know how. This feature was added at the request of the French army who placed a large provisional order during the design stage but never actually bought it. The Germans took over over the FN factory in Belgium in WW2 and ramped up the production of Browning HPs for their own use. They were in service with the British army for about 30 years.

You are right that the lead round nosed semi auto live rounds are referred to as training or practice rounds in Thailand, as they cheaper and under powered but that makes no difference in 25 metre ranges. The copper nosed rounds are referred as real bullets. Actually a ridiculous nomenclature that implies the lead nosed rounds are not dangerous. The Navy range in Bangkok actually requires to see your permit, if you "real bullets" but not if you buy "practice bullets" consistent with this nonsensical view. Before copper nosed bullets there were only lead nosed bullets and, as all the guys in the Tombstone cemetery in the Wild West can attest, these practice rounds are lethal. Having said all that the Thai version of the police press release reprinted by every one of the news outlets specified that practice dummy rounds were used, even though we can perhaps take the press release with a grain of salt.

A tragic accident but it is not at all clear from the news articles and TV clips exactly what happened. Unfortunately, as usual in Thailand, all the reports have the same wording as the police press release which starts, "On 13 May at 11.30 hours Pol. L/Cpl Somchai received a call about an accident at 333 range...." So there has been no independent reporting on the incident. It is not clear if the instructor was standing in front of the students and getting them to do dry firing drills with dummy rounds or not but it sound as if that may sadly be the case. If so, a massive breach of gun safety rules and common sense. I am a member of the 333 Rangsit range but I mainly use the 200 yard rifle range. I have shot IDPA matches there and most the ranges there are 25 metre ranges used for IDPA and IPSC matches and training, as well as beginner courses like this one. In IDPA and IPSC when you finish your stage, you are asked to "show clear" which means you remove the magazine from a semi auto pistol and rack back the slide to show the official there is no round in the chamber. This unfortunately results in a large number of live rounds ejected on the ground. You try to either catch your round or pick it up from the ground but often they are hard to see and you have to move on quickly to verify your scores on the targets. Most dummies used in Thailand are the A-Zoom brand which are are made of aluminium and colored burgundy or blue, so as to be easily distinguishable from live rounds. They are also dummies that long like full metal jacket live rounds with a brass case and a copper nose but colored red on the head stamp or where the primer would go on a live round to distinguish them. The idea of these is that they are exactly the same weight as live rounds but they are not really very safe because they look so much like live rounds that an accident like this one could happen. However, I have never seen anyone selling or using this type of dummy in Thailand. (I have also never seen an instructor using dummy rounds other than at Sor Ror Phor as mentioned in the post above). At any rate, the rounds mainly used in practice ranges and in IDPA/IPSC in Thailand look quite different as they cheaper lead nosed bullets not FMJ copper nosed like those dummies. However a few competitive shooters use copper nosed bullets in Thailand. So it is just possible, although extremely unlikely, that they were doing dry firing drills with copper nosed dummy and the student happened to chance upon a live copper nosed round on the ground that she mistook for a copper nosed dummy she had just ejected from her Glock. The above scenario seems a one in a thousand chance or less. So I expect the story put out by the police is either unfactual or the there was extreme stupidity exercised either the instructor or the student or both. I have heard of other range accidents that were less serious where a story was concocted before the police arrived to protect everyone. Maybe this happened here too. We may never know. RIP instructor Capt Charnchai. So sad for his family and Miss Tacha will have to live with this for the rest of her life.

Sor Ror Phor, the military range in Lardplakhao that trains VIP protection guards and has civilian members for its courses, does training with dummy rounds. These are used for training with semi auto pistols. What happens is that the instructor loads your magazine with a dummy round somewhere without letting you see where it is in the mag. The idea is the gun won't shoot when you hit the dummy and you have to clear it. So it is training for clearing malfunctions. But to do these semi auto courses you have to pass the basic revolver course and you know the basics of gun safety already. Also the instructors never stand in front of the students in dry firing drills or drills with dummy rounds which may be what happened here. Like you I have never seen dummy rounds used in training anywhere in Thailand other than at Sor Ror Phor, which is rather unique, and I have done a lot of IDPA, IPSC and other handgun courses in country.

Unfortunately the UK government just regards pension contributions as its revenue to be spent as it pleases in the year it receives them, while it regards pension payments as current expenses to be paid out of current income or borrowings. Some countries like New Zealand and Singapore actually invest the pension contributions for the future benefit of the pensioners or, as in Singapore, allow the contributors to invest their own contributions. The UK approach is nothing short of state sponsored theft. The contributions are in reality just another stealth tax.

Brother-in-law in South Africa, who is 76 and diabetic, caught COVID and recovered after a few days of fever, runny nose, cough and sore throat. He has had 2x Pfizer, the second shot nearly 6 months ago. They bother to do the sequencing for most cases there but assumed it was omicron.

I met two English girls in a Bkk pub once. They had been just been for interviews together at a private school looking for English teachers. The two girls had the same education (which I didn't include teaching credentials), came from the same town, spoke clear English without heavy accents and were the same age but one was white and the other was black. Guess which one got the job. The head mistress told the black girl, "I am so sorry but the parents would never accept a black teacher. I am sure you understand my position." The sad thing is that she was probably right. The Thai Chinese parents could accept being conned by the school that tpok their money and illegally hired unqualified teachers but could not accept that one of them might be black. Thailand is truly a form over substance culture.

Lisa is the step daughter of a well known Swiss chef in Thailand. She got a decent education in Bangkok.