Rise of the Underground SE Asian Homemade Gun Industry

Published by: Counter Terrorism Certification Board, Dr. Omer Ali Saifuden.

The shooting at the Paragon mall in Bangkok, raised several haunting questions. Has the gun culture in Bangkok gone out of hand to the point it resembles active shooter attacks in the United States?

Is it so easy to get firearms and ammunition there that a 14 year old student is able to do it?  What are we overlooking when we discuss the issue of access to small arms in Southeast Asia?

It has now been ascertained that the weapon used in the attack was an imitation Glock pistol (similar to a BB gun that shoots metal pellets or an airsoft gun that shoots plastic pellets) originally meant to shoot blanks that was modified to shoot actual rounds instead. This can be easily done by replacing the barrel meant to shoot blanks with one that can shoot actual rounds. These imitation guns are legal to purchase in Bangkok as they are not considered as firearms under Thai law[1].

One of those arrested for selling the firearm to the Paragon mall attacker had at his place of address a production and modification facility for BB guns and blank firearms. The Paragon attacker had purchased it online and was training at a shooting range belonging to the Royal Thai Army.[2] Thai homemade guns are called by the local nickname – “Thai Pradit” guns. They have been used in robberies, sometimes in cases of intimidation and personal disputes. In July 2022, 2103 ‘blank guns’, 142 pre-charged pneumatic (PCP) air-rifles were seized during a raid by authorities at two houses in Bangkok.[3].

This ease of obtaining firearms has dangerous spillover effects. There is a demand for low-priced Thai firearms in the northern Malaysian states bordering Thailand which are smuggled in through the numerous illegal jetties along the coast. A Thai Homemade firearm that costs around RM6000, and looks like a compact and concealable 9mm handgun was seized back in Jan 2021 by Malaysian authorities. Many of such weapons are in demand by Malaysian drug syndicates. [4]

Bangkok is not the only place in Southeast Asia where this is possible and in Indonesia, a similar modified imitation weapon was used in an attack this year. One should not take light of these “air-rifles” / “air-soft guns” / “BB guns”, as in May 2023, a man claiming to a prophet attacked the Majelis Ulama Indonesia, MUIs (One of the largest Islamic clerical bodies in Indonesia) headquarters in Jakarta using what appeared to look like a modified  airsoft gun that looked like a Glock pistol but it shot Gotri metal balls like an airgun using compressed Carbon dioxide (CO²) gas.[5] Two MUI employees were injured in the attack [6].  In Indonesia Airsoft guns have been found with criminals and terrorists, with most of them brandishing it as a scare tactic in attacks. Similar to the Philippines, the Cipacing gunsmiths can trace their history back to colonial days, when they were repairing Dutch guns such as Steyr and SigSauers.[7] This is just one example of the rich tradition of highly skilled village gunsmith expertise that resides in Southeast Asia.

One of the areas that fall outside the purview of many controls relating to tracking small arms relates to counterfeit and handmade guns. We are referring to two types of weaponry here. One is a reproduction of popular small arms such as the Colt M1911 pistol. The other refers to homemade handguns and weaponry that can fire common caliber rounds. The Small Arms Survey (2018) and the UNODC Study on Firearms (2015), call these ‘craft weapons’ and handmade handguns and weaponry as “rudimentary arms”.[8]

There are certain centers of production in the world that specialise in the production of such “homemade” weaponry. One is the Peshawar district in Pakistan in the North-West Frontier Province.[9] Closer to this region, the gunsmiths in the Philippine provinces of Danao are celebrated gunsmiths, whose history goes back to how they produced guns to fight the Japanese during the Second World War. With a ‘no questions asked’ policy, a locally produced gun costs around US$125 [10] Called a ‘Paltik’ (Filipino name for a homemade firearm), it is usually made from scrap metal and angel iron[11], usually has no rifling and these local gunsmiths prefer to make 0.38 caliber revolvers.[12]

These handguns can be well made and use no more than recycled metal at times. What is interesting is that of late, criminal and terror groups in Indonesia have been turning to handmade guns made in Indonesia as well.

On 14 Aug of 2023, a 28-year-old man was arrested in Bekasi, Indonesia by the Indonesian Counter-Terrorism Police Densus 88. He was found to have stored several homemade firearms (e.g. modified air rifles, which were actually airsoft gun modifications). [13][14]

Indonesian terrorists have in the past turned to assembling guns in home-based factories. The Medan suicide attack in November 2019 was linked to a former trainer of Moro militants and an ex-Free Syrian Army soldier who had the skills to assemble weapons. In addition to this, in 2020 two home-based weapons factories for terrorists were found to exist in Cipacing, West Java, and Klaten, Central Java. The attackers of the 2013 South Tangerang shootings had obtained their weapons from this factory. Again in 2020, in Jember, East Java province, another home-made gun factory was discovered. [15] It was reported in 2013, that most robbers in Indonesia had used home-made guns in their attacks which cost around US$411. (up to 98% of the attacks and the weapons were made by air-rifle manufacturers who turned their skills to modifying or manufacturing guns than can fire actual rounds)[16]

There is the potential for bad actors to exploit the potential offered by homemade guns with Singapore’s Northern neighbour Malaysia as well. Malaysians in the state of Sabah have been making homemade guns in their villages for some time now.

This is quite common, and they are rather good at it as well. The “Bakakuk” (made using improvised materials like steel pipes) and “Ginsuk” (akin to a musket and using tin pellets) are two types of homemade rifles that are common in Sabah. Villagers generally use them for hunting and they are unlicensed. Interestingly back in 2014, in Sarawak, a homemade pen-gun (pen that functions as a gun) was discovered when the owner killed himself when it went off accidentally. What is worrying is that the potential to produce such homemade concealable firearms exists in several regions of Southeast Asia. Thus far, the most serious incidents involving such homemade guns in Sabah, Malaysia have been the instance of an apprehended drug trafficker in possession of three homemade shotguns at his home in Kinabtangan, Sabah back in 2018, murders, drunken individuals using them and cases of accidental firing of the weapon leading to death and injuries.[17] 

At this juncture, one might ask, what about 3D guns like what had been used in Halle, Germany in 2019, in which the far-right attacker of a synagogue used a homemade weapon modelled on a blueprint downloaded from the Internet. Parts of the weapon were made with a 3D printer. [18] Apparently, the parts that were printed using the 3D printer were not vital components of the gun. Most of the materials used were made from steel and parts that can be easily procured commercially.

Furthermore, the first weapon jammed during the attack and hence was considered a failure.[19] We also need to keep in mind that 3D guns are not as durable as homemade guns made from steel. [20] We should also keep in mind the gunsmiths of Southeast Asia have been making homemade weapons for generations and have the skills to make far more viable firearms almost as good as conventional firearms even though it is a fact that anything homemade has a very high chance of misfiring and even malfunctioning to the point of killing or seriously maiming the shooter.

The presence of thriving arms markets in Southeast Asia means, there is a ready supply for the ammunition that needs to accompany such homemade firearms. One is ‘Tuk Thla’ which is close to Phnom Penh, Cambodia which offers a wide range of small arms and ammunition. These pass into Thailand and dealers for such small arms and ammunition trading can be found predominantly in Phuket, Bangkok and Chiang Mai. From here they are smuggled over to militants in Indonesia and the Philippines. Coupled with the gunsmiths in Danao and the Sulu arms market, there is no shortage of munitions in Southeast Asia. [21] [22]

Taken together what are the implications of such trends for a city state like Singapore. Primarily, it is the possibility of bad actors in Singapore attempting to learn from the village gunsmiths in this region. Then, taking these skills back home and fusing them with the latest DIY information and templates for homemade firearms available over the darknet and using better materials to make credible homemade firearms for criminal or terrorist attacks. Such experimentation by a driven bad actor or by a misguided and vulnerable teenager is not outside the realm of the probable given such existing capacities for making homemade weapons in Southeast Asia.

Bibliography | References

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