On Aug 7, a student opened fire at Debsirin Nonthaburi School on the north-western outskirts of Bangkok, leaving at least seven people dead and 15 injured. The suspected shooter, who was an eighth-grade student, was among the people who were killed.
The incident took place in the Bang Kruai district of Nonthaburi province at about 10am local time.
Reuters reported that 26 rounds of ammunition were fired, with another 34 rounds found at the scene. The suspect had used a handgun that belonged to his grandfather, AFP reported.
The shooter also shot and killed his grandparents at their home before opening fire at the school, police said.
Education Minister Prasert Jantararuangtong told Reuters that both teachers and students were among those reported dead.
Students streamed out of Debsirin Nonthaburi School, as the wounded were loaded onto ambulances and teachers hugged each other and cried.
When the incident occurred, police warned people to stay away from the area.
"Anyone trapped inside a building, hide, close everything tightly, and wait for rescue personnel to arrive," the police posted on their Facebook page.
Shortly after, the police updated that the shooter was in the school computer room.
"Who is still stuck there? Hide securely," the police wrote in their statement, urging people to wait for the authorities.
The Debsirin school is a well-known secondary school that has branches across the country. In 2025, the school had an enrolment of about 3,100 students and 147 teachers, according to district authorities.
Deputy Education Minister Akkharanan Kannakittinan said in a statement that he was coordinating to provide assistance.
Emergency worker Kiatikhun Verapongpradith, 47, described arriving as the shooting was ongoing. His team treated students with injuries in the back, chest and arms.
They found a male teacher lying dead on an upper floor of the school, and found a female teacher in another room with wounds in her chest and arm.
“We gave CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) for about 30 minutes and rushed her to the hospital as we could not get her heart rate up, but we tried our best,” he said.
Thailand has the highest rates of gun ownership in the region, with around 10 million firearms estimated to be in circulation – one for every seven inhabitants.
Source: Small Arms Survey 2017
Gun ownership and gun violence are not uncommon in Thailand, which has seen a series of deadly shootings in the past six years, with children among the victims.
Thailand’s worst mass killing by a single perpetrator in its recent history took place in 2022, when a former policeman ran amok in a three-hour gun-and-knife attack in the north-east that killed 36 people, including 22 children stabbed as they slept at a daycare centre.
A gunman killed five people including security guards and a vendor at a Bangkok market in July 2025 before turning the gun on himself, while a teacher died in the southern city of Hat Yai in February 2026 when a shooter opened fire at a school where she worked.
In 2020, a soldier killed 29 people in a shooting rampage in Nakhon Ratchasima.
And in 2023, a 14-year-old used a modified handgun to kill two people and wound five others at a luxury Bangkok shopping centre.
Among ASEAN countries, Thailand has the second-highest number of firearm-related deaths, after the Philippines.