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Shootings Escalate in Trigger-Happy Thailand

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Guns are fairly easy to acquire in Thailand. Since 1947 it’s been legal to own firearms for “purposes of self-defense, protection of property, sports or hunting,” according to the law.

BANGKOK – On the afternoon of July 11, 2017, six or seven gunmen dressed in military outfits arrived at the home of a village chief in the subdistrict of Ban Klang, in Thailand’s Krabi province. Pretending to be government officials, they demanded entry to search the property and warned the chief’s family not to leave the house.

Realizing the chief wasn’t at home at the time, they waited until 8:00 P.M., when he returned. They proceeded to handcuff and blindfold him and his family. They waited until midnight before killing them execution-style, shooting most of them in the head.

The assailants then fled in a car, leaving the police to find six dead bodies and two people fatally wounded. Among the eight dead were three children.

The nature of the killing was shocking for many, especially as it happened in a province popular with tourists for its white cliffs and sandy beaches. Police suspect the killing to have been in a personal dispute with the chief himself.

Although mass killings are rare in Thailand, the incident reignited public interest in a peculiar issue that blights the kingdom. Namely the people’s love of guns.

Thailand’s gun problem is not simply an issue of lax policing or short-sighted counterinsurgency strategy.

When you think of Thailand, you might think of intricate temples, sandy beaches, a bustling nightlife and an idyllic vibe. A country awash with gun violence might be the last thing you consider. And yet, a 2013 study by the University of Washington ranked Thailand number one out of 10 countries in Asia in terms of gun-related deaths per capita.

With 7.48 deaths per 100,000 people in 2013, the Buddhist kingdom suffered higher fatalities from shootings per capita than did the United States, which experienced 3.55 deaths per 100,000 the same year.

Thailand also has the dubious honor of having one of the highest gun-ownership ratios in Asia. According to the country’s interior ministry, there are around six million registered guns among a population of around 67 million, meaning that every one in 10 persons in the country legally owns a gun.

However, the figures are substantially higher once you consider unregistered arms. According to a 2007 report by Small Arms Survey, an independent research project at the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies in Geneva, there were an estimated 10 million guns in circulation in the kingdom in 2007, ranking it 11th globally in the number of privately-owned firearms by country.

Thailand’s army has distributed 2,700 assault rifles to civilian volunteers in the country’s Muslim-dominated south amid a renewed effort to confront a violent insurgency.

Guns are fairly easy to acquire in Thailand. Since 1947 it’s been legal to own firearms for “purposes of self-defense, protection of property, sports or hunting,” according to the law. You have to be 20 years old and pass background checks to acquire a license.

The guns themselves can cost around $600 to purchase — “not an insurmountable sum for the average Thai,” according to John J. Brandon, the senior director for the The Asia Foundation’s regional cooperation programs.

Acquiring arms on the black market isn’t difficult. Many guns are smuggled over the Cambodian and Myanmar border and can be found in markets in border areas. Even authority figures help feed the proliferation of illegal arms. Since government employees are entitled to buy a gun at a discount, some declare their weapon lost and sell it for a hefty sum on the black market.

Others accept bribes to speed up the process of acquiring a license. Military and paramilitary officials have also been known to sell weapons to non-state entities.

A long running insurgency in Thailand’s deep south probably doesn’t help matters. Since 2004, a low-level insurgency has been waged by quasi-secessionists in the Malay-Muslim majority provinces of Pattani, Yala and Narathiwat.

Thailand has a fervent gun culture on par with the United States,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Diplomatic Security noted in a 2013 safety report

Unable to provide proper security for its residents, the government decided to delegate security responsibilities to paramilitary groups and civilian militias, most of whom are Thai Buddhists. These groups range from paramilitary rangers armed with M-16s assault rifles to civilian volunteer units armed with pump-action shotguns.

Authorities waive firearms regulations and subsidize gun purchases for vulnerable groups in the provinces, including government officials, teachers and militiamen.

However, experts claim Bangkok’s policy of arming its citizenry only exacerbates the conflict. Many of these militias groups are often ill-supervised and poorly disciplined. They exploit gaps in the rule of law to commit human rights abuses against the Malay majority.

Current policies also make it substantially easier for Thai Buddhists to acquire guns, compared to Malay Muslims, leaving the latter to feel defenseless and discriminated against. Armed Malays often suffer harassment by authorities.

The presence of guns only encourages violent, indiscriminate retribution rather than peaceful arbitration, allowing for tit-for-tat attacks which only fuel communal tensions. In June 2009 in Narathiwat, two Buddhist Thai teachers — including a pregnant woman — were killed by insurgents.

On June 8 that year, six masked gunmen opened fire at a mosque, killing 10 worshipers. Authorities believe the perpetrators to have been militiamen. Soon thereafter, Buddhist monks and Buddhist temples came under attack. A vicious cycle has formed in the deep south. Guns fuel insecurity and paranoia, which in turn increase the demand for guns.

Thai children aim an armoured vehicle-mounted rifle as a soldier watches during a gathering at a Navy camp on the occasion of National Children’s Day in Thailand’s restive southern province of Narathiwat – Photo MADAREE TOHLALA

Arguably, Thailand’s gun problem is not simply an issue of lax policing or short-sighted counterinsurgency strategy. It may also speak to a deeper cultural malaise. “Thailand has a fervent gun culture on par with the United States,” the U.S. State Department’s Bureau for Diplomatic Security noted in a 2013 safety report for its staff in Thailand.

Personal vendettas, fits of passion and loss of face over a business or personal dispute are often attributed for the kingdom’s high gun-related deaths. ‘There is a real culture of guns in Thailand,” a Western embassy staffer in Bangkok noted. “It’s a military-style culture, a place of uniforms and male power.”

Consider some recent shootings in Thailand. A senator who accidentally killed his wife with an Uzi over Sunday dinner. A bus driver who shot a passenger in the chest after the victim criticized his driving skills. A woman shot by an angry lover in a mall. A man shot dead in his apartment after arguing with his security guard. Two rival gangs having a shootout following a “Gangnam Style” dance-off.

School students arm themselves to uphold the honor of their school against rival schools. “Thailand has become a Wild West movie,” remarked controversial politician and once-seedy massage parlor tycoon Chuwit Kamolvisit. “People pull out their guns at a moment’s notice.”

Every year, on the second Saturday in January, Thailand holds their National Children’s Day.

People also point to Thailand’s notoriously unstable and corrupt political system. If you have no faith in the system to provide justice, owning a gun might seem like a way of ensuring justice. “If a man can’t wear a uniform, having a gun is the next best thing,” Chuwit said.

What attention Thai authorities do show to the problem tends to be very fleeting. Apart from occasionally demanding the handing-over of guns, Thais seem oddly apathetic toward gun crime. Kasit Piromya, a former foreign minister and advocate of gun control, attributes this to the Buddhist mentality of karma. “When you die, you die. It’s acceptance and resignation. We take death calmly as part of life.”

Whether this latest mass killing in Krabi inspires a serious discussion in Asia’s gun capital remains to be seen. The problem with gun cultures is that, once entrenched, they become very difficult to break. On Children’s Day in January 2017, kids as young as three were allowed to handle assault rifles and machine guns at the Royal Thai Naval Academy in south Bangkok.

Fun for the kids, probably. But also arguably fueling an already trigger-happy culture.

By Imran Shamsunahar, WIB

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Trudeau’s Gun Grab Could Cost Taxpayers a Whopping $7 Billion

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Trudeau's Gun Grab
Trudeau plans to purchase 2,063 firearm from legal gun owners in Canada - Rebel News Image

A recent report indicates that since Trudeau’s announcement of his gun buyback program four years ago, almost none of the banned firearms have been surrendered.

The federal government plans to purchase 2,063 firearm models from retailers following the enactment of Bill C-21, which amends various Acts and introduces certain consequential changes related to firearms. It was granted royal assent on December 15 of last year.

This ban immediately criminalized the actions of federally-licensed firearms owners regarding the purchase, sale, transportation, importation, exportation, or use of hundreds of thousands of rifles and shotguns that were previously legal.

The gun ban focused on what it termed ‘assault-style weapons,’ which are, in reality, traditional semi-automatic rifles and shotguns that have enjoyed popularity among hunters and sport shooters for over a century.

In May 2020, the federal government enacted an Order-in-Council that prohibited 1,500 types of “assault-style” firearms and outlined specific components of the newly banned firearms. Property owners must adhere to the law by October 2023.

Trudeau’s Buyback Hasn’t Happened

“In the announcement regarding the ban, the prime minister stated that the government would seize the prohibited firearms, assuring that their lawful owners would be ‘grandfathered’ or compensated fairly.” “That hasn’t happened,” criminologist Gary Mauser told Rebel News.

Mauser projected expenses ranging from $2.6 billion to $6.7 billion. The figure reflects the compensation costs amounting to $756 million, as outlined by the Parliamentary Budget Office (PBO).

“The projected expenses for gathering the illegal firearms are estimated to range from $1.6 billion to $7 billion.” “This range estimate increases to between $2.647 billion and $7 billion when compensation costs to owners are factored in,” Mauser stated.

Figures requested by Conservative MP Shannon Stubbs concerning firearms prohibited due to the May 1, 2020 Order In Council reveal that $72 million has been allocated to the firearm “buyback” program, yet not a single firearm has been confiscated to date.

In a recent revelation, Public Safety Canada disclosed that the federal government allocated a staggering $41,094,556, as prompted by an order paper question from Conservative Senator Don Plett last September, yet yielded no tangible outcomes.

An internal memo from late 2019 revealed that the Liberals projected their politically motivated harassment would incur a cost of $1.8 billion.

Enforcement efforts Questioned

By December 2023, estimates from TheGunBlog.ca indicate that the Liberals and RCMP had incurred or were responsible for approximately $30 million in personnel expenses related to the enforcement efforts. The union representing the police service previously stated that the effort to confiscate firearms is a “misdirected effort” aimed at ensuring public safety.

“This action diverts crucial personnel, resources, and funding from tackling the more pressing and escalating issue of criminal use of illegal firearms,” stated the National Police Federation (NPF).

The Canadian Sporting Arms & Ammunition Association (CSAAA), representing firearms retailers, has stated it will have “zero involvement” in the confiscation of these firearms. Even Canada Post held back from providing assistance due to safety concerns.

The consultant previously assessed that retailers are sitting on almost $1 billion worth of inventory that cannot be sold or returned to suppliers because of the Order-In-Council.

“Despite the ongoing confusion surrounding the ban, after four years, we ought to be able to address one crucial question.” Has the prohibition enhanced safety for Canadians? Mauser asks.

Illegally Obtained Firearms are the Problem

Statistics Canada reports a 10% increase in firearm-related violent crime between 2020 and 2022, rising from 12,614 incidents to 13,937 incidents. In that timeframe, the incidence of firearm-related violent crime increased from 33.7 incidents per 100,000 population in 2021 to 36.7 incidents the subsequent year.

“This marks the highest rate documented since the collection of comparable data began in 2009,” the criminologist explains.

Supplementary DataData indicates that firearm homicides have risen since 2020. “The issue lies not with lawfully-held firearms,” Mauser stated.

Firearms that have been banned under the Order-in-Council continue to be securely stored in the safes of their lawful owners. The individuals underwent a thorough vetting process by the RCMP and are subject to nightly monitoring to ensure there are no infractions that could pose a risk to public safety.

“The firearms involved in homicides were seldom legally owned weapons wielded by their rightful owners,” Mauser continues. The number of offenses linked to organized crime has surged from 4,810 in 2016 to a staggering 13,056 in 2020.

“If those in power … aim to diminish crime and enhance public safety, they ought to implement strategies that effectively focus on offenders and utilize our limited tax resources judiciously to reach these objectives,” he stated.

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

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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.

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

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(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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