22 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

My house is rodent free.

Thanks to some feral cat out there who cares about you.😄

Just now, oslooskar said:

Thanks to some feral cat out there who cares about you.😄

Ferals have been eradicated.

On 5/14/2026 at 8:54 AM, impulse said:

What does that have to do with the story at hand? Back when I arrived (2011), foreigners could buy and legally register guns. It was apparently a PITA to get approved, but I knew a few that had legal guns. I decided early on that it wasn't worth the effort. That's apparently no longer the case, since (I think) around 2016, when they banned foreign purchases. But I think they grandfathered in the existing foreigners.

If (as the OP claims) the guns were legally registered, the guy's not a tourist and wasn't on a 60 day visa exempt when he bought them.

Edit: In fact, if the guy went through the approval process, he's probably been carefully vetted.

On an aside, I've window shopped the gun store neighborhood in BKK Chinatown and my Lord, their prices are outrageous.

Prior till around 2022, foreigners with PR could still get a permit. The core requirement was to be registered in a blue household registration book (not the yellow one). Nowadays it's Thai only, but foreigners with legally registered guns can keep them. Also nowadays (at least in Bangkok), foreigners who naturalise as Thai citizens are being turned away: if you don't have a Thai sounding name and one parent who's Thai, forget it.

The guns in the locker were most likely legally registered to Thais who brought them under one of the many state-subsidised programmes to provide 'cheap' weapons to state officials: usually around half the price of a civilian sale. Those weapons have a mandatory minimum 5-year ownership period stipulated before the legal owner can sell it on. So of course there's a big incentive to say 'I lost my gun' after say 2 years (after selling it to someone off the books) and then get a new one.

The 'vetting' process to become a legal owner is really just a paper exercise (at least in Bangkok). Many of the gun shops will get the permits for the purchaser, including taking your fingerprints (the Por 3 you need to be able to buy a particular gun, ie 'a semi-automatic 9mm calibre pistol' and then the Por 4 ownership permit for the specific weapon that is purchased: all this used to cost around THB 5,000). There also used to be brokers who hung out at the DOPA licensing centre in Bangkok who would offer the same service.

On 5/14/2026 at 12:49 PM, unblocktheplanet said:

Why would anybody need five pistols? Why would anybody need any guns at all in Thailand???

There's an active sport shooting scene in Thailand (IPSC, IDPA). Very common to have more than one pistol as 'Pistol A' may be competition-legal in one category but not another.

Although I doubt the bloke who put these pistols in the safety deposit box was a sports shooting aficionado.

7 hours ago, Ralf001 said:

Ferals have been eradicated.

Except the two-legged variety!

26 minutes ago, unblocktheplanet said:

Except the two-legged variety!

Yeah unfortunately society is not keen on that.

On 5/16/2026 at 5:51 PM, Ralf001 said:

Ferals have been eradicated.

No, they've just relocated. I know this to be a fact because I feed at least ten of them.

2 minutes ago, oslooskar said:

No, they've just relocated. I know this to be a fact because I feed at least ten of them.

Yur not feeding the dozens I have incinerated in my burn barrel.