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Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

Guns Control in Thailand Remains Problematic

The most recent mass shooting in Thailand uncovered shocking information about the country’s high violence with guns and gun possession ranking. The mass shooting has also reignited the debate over gun regulations.

According to the World Population Review website, Thailand is now rated 15th among countries with the highest gun-related deaths and second in Southeast Asia.

Brazil, the United States, Mexico, India, and Columbia have the highest gun-related deaths, whereas the Philippines has the highest number of deaths in the ASEAN area.

While gun violence and mass shootings appear on the rise, Southeast Asia has less gun violence than other continents.

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

Gun violence is significantly more prevalent in the Americas.

Gun violence and homicides in Southeast Asia are also on the decline, according to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC).

As a result, recent mass shootings in Thailand, in Nong Bua Lam Phu and Nakhon Ratchasima in 2020, are regarded as “unusual” for the region.

“Despite being horrific and tragic, we are not at proportions seen on other continents in Southeast Asia and Thailand,” said Julien Garsany, UNODC’s Deputy Regional Representative for Southeast Asia and the Pacific.

Julien adds that the availability of legal and illegal guns is the key reason Thailand has the highest gun possession rate among ASEAN countries. Such weapons are also widely available on the illegal market and online.

Thailand has the biggest number of guns in private hands among ASEAN member countries, according to the Small Arms Survey (SAS) in 2017.

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

A total of 10,342,000 weapons were documented, with 6,221,180 properly registered and the rest illegal. This means that 15 out of 100 Thais own guns.

The UNODC representative also stated that the majority of illegal firearms in Thailand were obtained through border trafficking. This signifies that the country is experiencing internal turmoil and instability.

“For example, on the borders with Malaysia, Cambodia, and Myanmar, we can see these flows of firearms flowing both ways, making it easier to acquire them.” When there is insecurity, firearms are certainly more readily available.”

Although lethal mass shootings are infrequent, gun violence is common in Thailand. People who follow the news are all too acquainted with such incidents, whether they occur between partners, family members, neighbours, or coworkers.

Aside from the Nong Bua Lam Phu atrocity, one of the most recent shootings occurred in Ubon Ratchathani province in August of this year, involving two competing gangs in a superstore parking lot. There were two fatalities and seven injuries.

In the same month, three individuals were injured in a gunfight in broad daylight involving over a dozen men from two rival ice factories in Ayutthaya.

Aside from the availability of (illegal) firearms, the media plays a significant influence in persuading people that gun ownership is the only way to protect themselves.

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

In Thai operas, guns are frequently used to express jealousy, fury, hatred, or despair.

Most scenarios depict gun violence as a means of exacting vengeance on adversaries or resolving convoluted issues such as love triangles, fighting over inheritance, or hierarchical tyranny.

The need for a gun also suggests that Thais have little faith in the government.

People no longer think that the police can successfully defend them when they are in difficulties, according to Thai criminologist Associate Professor Police Lieutenant Colonel Dr. Krisanaphong Poothakool.

“However, why don’t people in the United Kingdom, Japan, or Singapore believe they must own a gun?” Because their government guarantees people that if a crime occurs, the police would act quickly and give justice.”

Thailand’s Interior Ministry also maintains a “gun welfare” program in which state institutions such as the Royal Thai Police, the Customs Department, and state corporations purchase weapons for their employees at a significantly lower cost through local gun sellers.

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

There also isn’t a number limit on how many guns an official can purchase under this program, whether for self-defence, property protection, sports, or game hunting.

That means they can utilize this “right” to buy as many guns as they want.

“People currently believe that firearms should be kept as assets,” said Associate Professor Dr. Piyaporn Tunneekul, a criminologist at Nakhon Pathom Rajabhat University who studies firearms possession in Thailand.

According to Dr. Piyaporn, an official must keep their guns for up to three years under the gun welfare scheme. They can sell them after the three-year period is up.

However, she believes that the program should be limited to one firearm per person and that owners should be required to sell or destroy their old guns before obtaining a new one.

“That is why the figures appear so high, because one official holds multiple firearms, yet it is extremely difficult for ordinary people like us to obtain one.” This demonstrates how firearms represent power, and Thai people desire authority over others.”

Despite this “luxury,” it is still unclear how police officers who have already been fired have continued to have access to these firearms. This appears to be the core cause of the Nong Bua Lam Phu mass murder, in which an ex-police officer who was discharged for drug usage used his guns to commit the crime.

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

Thailand’s gun regulation and the process for licenses for guns should be strengthened.

Authorities may also consider revoking the firearms licenses of those convicted of heinous crimes.

“This is a huge problem we need to deal with,” he added. “There has never been a review or investigation of authorities or criminals convicted of drug misuse or other significant felonies, or even those demonstrating hostile behaviour or posting nasty or threatening remarks on social media.” We do not currently have such information in our databases.”

The mass murder at a daycare centre in Nong Bua Lam Phu province appears to have caused some reforms.

Prime Minister Prayut Chan-o-cha recently convened his first meeting on gun and illegal narcotics control to draft recommendations for successfully addressing drug abuse and gun-related violence.

They also addressed the possibility of withdrawing the weapons licenses of persons deemed a threat to society or addicted to drugs.

The Royal Thai Police are also considering removing guns from police officers who misbehave or are prone to gun violence, even if they were legally purchased. This policy might also include retired cops.

Although changing existing gun regulations are the top priority, Dr. Krisanaphong believes that short-term and long-term solutions should be employed to reduce gun violence.

“Now that we know the gunman was an ex-police officer with a history of drug misuse who used his firearms to commit the murder, we need to find out who else has been fired from the force or has been involved in drug abuse while on duty.”

Control on Guns in Thailand Remains Problematic

To prevent similar deaths, the criminologist proposes having clear guidelines on revoking gun licenses and seizing guns from police officers who have committed drug-related crimes or other significant felonies.

As a long-term plan, mental health exams of police personnel who own firearms are also required at least once a year.

To stop cops from hoarding firearms, the government should also establish a restriction on the importation of firearms through the “gun welfare” scheme.

“The number of imported firearms must correspond to the number of officials who truly need to use them, whether police officers, military, or security officials,” Dr. Krisanaphong added.

“Assume you set a limit of no more than 5 million firearms for the entire country; authorities must determine whether the number of firearms on the market has reached that level.” If you’ve surpassed the limit, you can’t import anymore,” Dr. Piyaporn explained.

Similarly, the UNODC thinks gun control policies must be implemented at the regional, national, and institutional levels.

“There are two major UN international instruments.” The first is the UN Protocol against Illicit Trafficking in Firearms, and the second is the UN Arms Trade Treaty,” Julien explained.

“None of these have been approved by Thailand or other Southeast Asian countries.”

Apart from reviewing the UN’s international gun protocols, the UNODC proposes that the government critically reconsider existing gun regulations and assess the true purpose of gun possession.

Furthermore, the police and military, which handle guns regularly, must recognize early warning indicators as to whether some personnel are potentially dangerous and likely to harm others through firearms.

By Nad Bunnag and Jeerapa Boonyatus, Thai PBS

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Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding, But Still Accounting 48% Search Revenue

Google

Google is so closely associated with its key product that its name is a verb that signifies “search.” However, Google’s dominance in that sector is dwindling.

According to eMarketer, Google will lose control of the US search industry for the first time in decades next year.

Google will remain the dominant search player, accounting for 48% of American search advertising revenue. And, remarkably, Google is still increasing its sales in the field, despite being the dominating player in search since the early days of the George W. Bush administration. However, Amazon is growing at a quicker rate.

google

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

Amazon will hold over a quarter of US search ad dollars next year, rising to 27% by 2026, while Google will fall even more, according to eMarketer.

The Wall Street Journal was first to report on the forecast.

Lest you think you’ll have to switch to Bing or Yahoo, this isn’t the end of Google or anything really near.

Google is the fourth-most valued public firm in the world. Its market worth is $2.1 trillion, trailing just Apple, Microsoft, and the AI chip darling Nvidia. It also maintains its dominance in other industries, such as display advertisements, where it dominates alongside Facebook’s parent firm Meta, and video ads on YouTube.

To put those “other” firms in context, each is worth more than Delta Air Lines’ total market value. So, yeah, Google is not going anywhere.

Nonetheless, Google faces numerous dangers to its operations, particularly from antitrust regulators.

On Monday, a federal judge in San Francisco ruled that Google must open up its Google Play Store to competitors, dealing a significant blow to the firm in its long-running battle with Fortnite creator Epic Games. Google announced that it would appeal the verdict.

In August, a federal judge ruled that Google has an illegal monopoly on search. That verdict could lead to the dissolution of the company’s search operation. Another antitrust lawsuit filed last month accuses Google of abusing its dominance in the online advertising business.

Meanwhile, European regulators have compelled Google to follow tough new standards, which have resulted in multiple $1 billion-plus fines.

google

Pixa Bay

Google’s Search Dominance Is Unwinding

On top of that, the marketplace is becoming more difficult on its own.

TikTok, the fastest-growing social network, is expanding into the search market. And Amazon has accomplished something few other digital titans have done to date: it has established a habit.

When you want to buy anything, you usually go to Amazon, not Google. Amazon then buys adverts to push companies’ products to the top of your search results, increasing sales and earning Amazon a greater portion of the revenue. According to eMarketer, it is expected to generate $27.8 billion in search revenue in the United States next year, trailing only Google’s $62.9 billion total.

And then there’s AI, the technology that (supposedly) will change everything.

Why search in stilted language for “kendall jenner why bad bunny breakup” or “police moving violation driver rights no stop sign” when you can just ask OpenAI’s ChatGPT, “What’s going on with Kendall Jenner and Bad Bunny?” in “I need help fighting a moving violation involving a stop sign that wasn’t visible.” Google is working on exactly this technology with its Gemini product, but its success is far from guaranteed, especially with Apple collaborating with OpenAI and other businesses rapidly joining the market.

A Google spokeswoman referred to a blog post from last week in which the company unveiled ads in its AI overviews (the AI-generated text that appears at the top of search results). It’s Google’s way of expressing its ability to profit on a changing marketplace while retaining its business, even as its consumers steadily transition to ask-and-answer AI and away from search.

google

Google has long used a single catchphrase to defend itself against opponents who claim it is a monopoly abusing its power: competition is only a click away. Until recently, that seemed comically obtuse. Really? We are going to switch to Bing? Or Duck Duck Go? Give me a break.

But today, it feels more like reality.

Google is in no danger of disappearing. However, every highly dominating company faces some type of reckoning over time. GE, a Dow mainstay for more than a century, was broken up last year and is now a shell of its previous dominance. Sears declared bankruptcy in 2022 and is virtually out of business. US Steel, long the foundation of American manufacturing, is attempting to sell itself to a Japanese corporation.

Could we remember Google in the same way that we remember Yahoo or Ask Jeeves in decades? These next few years could be significant.

SOURCE | CNN

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2024 | Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

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Washington — Trump Media,  The Supreme Court announced Monday that it will not hear an appeal from social media platform X about a search warrant acquired by prosecutors in the election meddling case against former President Donald Trump.

The justices did not explain their rationale, and there were no recorded dissents.

The firm, which was known as Twitter before being purchased by billionaire Elon Musk, claims a nondisclosure order that prevented it from informing Trump about the warrant obtained by special counsel Jack Smith’s team violated its First Amendment rights.

The business also claims Trump should have had an opportunity to exercise executive privilege. If not reined in, the government may employ similar tactics to intercept additional privileged communications, their lawyers contended.

trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

Two neutral electronic privacy groups also joined in, urging the high court to hear the case on First Amendment grounds.

Prosecutors, however, claim that the corporation never shown that Trump utilized the account for official purposes, therefore executive privilege is not a problem. A lower court also determined that informing Trump could have compromised the current probe.

trump

Trump utilized his Twitter account in the weeks preceding up to his supporters’ attack on the Capitol on January 6, 2021, to spread false assertions about the election, which prosecutors claim were intended to create doubt in the democratic process.

The indictment describes how Trump used his Twitter account to encourage his followers to travel to Washington on Jan. 6, pressuring Vice President Mike Pence to reject the certification, and falsely claiming that the Capitol crowd, which battered police officers and destroyed glass, was peaceful.

musk trump

Supreme Court Won’t Hear Appeal From Elon Musk’s X Platform Over Warrant In Trump Case

That case is now moving forward following the Supreme Court’s verdict in July, which granted Trump full immunity from criminal prosecution as a former president.

The warrant arrived at Twitter amid quick changes implemented by Musk, who bought the company in 2022 and has since cut off most of its workforce, including those dedicated to combating disinformation and hate speech.

He also welcomed back a vast list of previously banned users, including Trump, and endorsed him for the 2024 presidential election.

SOURCE | AP

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The Supreme Court Turns Down Biden’s Government Appeal in a Texas Emergency Abortion Matter.

Supreme Court

(VOR News) – A ruling that prohibits emergency abortions that contravene the Supreme Court law in the state of Texas, which has one of the most stringent abortion restrictions in the country, has been upheld by the Supreme Court of the United States. The United States Supreme Court upheld this decision.

The justices did not provide any specifics regarding the underlying reasons for their decision to uphold an order from a lower court that declared hospitals cannot be legally obligated to administer abortions if doing so would violate the law in the state of Texas.

Institutions are not required to perform abortions, as stipulated in the decree. The common populace did not investigate any opposing viewpoints. The decision was made just weeks before a presidential election that brought abortion to the forefront of the political agenda.

This decision follows the 2022 Supreme Court ruling that ended abortion nationwide.

In response to a request from the administration of Vice President Joe Biden to overturn the lower court’s decision, the justices expressed their disapproval.

The government contends that hospitals are obligated to perform abortions in compliance with federal legislation when the health or life of an expectant patient is in an exceedingly precarious condition.

This is the case in regions where the procedure is prohibited. The difficulty hospitals in Texas and other states are experiencing in determining whether or not routine care could be in violation of stringent state laws that prohibit abortion has resulted in an increase in the number of complaints concerning pregnant women who are experiencing medical distress being turned away from emergency rooms.

The administration cited the Supreme Court’s ruling in a case that bore a striking resemblance to the one that was presented to it in Idaho at the beginning of the year. The justices took a limited decision in that case to allow the continuation of emergency abortions without interruption while a lawsuit was still being heard.

In contrast, Texas has been a vocal proponent of the injunction’s continued enforcement. Texas has argued that its circumstances are distinct from those of Idaho, as the state does have an exemption for situations that pose a significant hazard to the health of an expectant patient.

According to the state, the discrepancy is the result of this exemption. The state of Idaho had a provision that safeguarded a woman’s life when the issue was first broached; however, it did not include protection for her health.

Certified medical practitioners are not obligated to wait until a woman’s life is in imminent peril before they are legally permitted to perform an abortion, as determined by the state supreme court.

The state of Texas highlighted this to the Supreme Court.

Nevertheless, medical professionals have criticized the Texas statute as being perilously ambiguous, and a medical board has declined to provide a list of all the disorders that are eligible for an exception. Furthermore, the statute has been criticized for its hazardous ambiguity.

For an extended period, termination of pregnancies has been a standard procedure in medical treatment for individuals who have been experiencing significant issues. It is implemented in this manner to prevent catastrophic outcomes, such as sepsis, organ failure, and other severe scenarios.

Nevertheless, medical professionals and hospitals in Texas and other states with strict abortion laws have noted that it is uncertain whether or not these terminations could be in violation of abortion prohibitions that include the possibility of a prison sentence. This is the case in regions where abortion prohibitions are exceedingly restrictive.

Following the Supreme Court’s decision to overturn Roe v. Wade, which resulted in restrictions on the rights of women to have abortions in several Republican-ruled states, the Texas case was revisited in 2022.

As per the orders that were disclosed by the administration of Vice President Joe Biden, hospitals are still required to provide abortions in cases that are classified as dire emergency.

As stipulated in a piece of health care legislation, the majority of hospitals are obligated to provide medical assistance to patients who are experiencing medical distress. This is in accordance with the law.

The state of Texas maintained that hospitals should not be obligated to provide abortions throughout the litigation, as doing so would violate the state’s constitutional prohibition on abortions. In its January judgment, the 5th United States Circuit Court of Appeals concurred with the state and acknowledged that the administration had exceeded its authority.

SOURCE: AP

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