Thailand has stopped issuing new gun permits after a mass school shooting and an incident of violence involving a former lawmaker left the country reeling.

No permit to buy or own a firearm will be granted until further notice and existing permits will not be renewed.

Prime minister Anutin Charnvirakul said the suspension would hold while his government drafted new gun laws carrying tighter controls and significantly harsher penalties. The government did not say what would happen to the permits already held.

Last week, a 14-year-old boy shot dead eight people, including grandparents at his home and students and staff at his school, in one of the deadliest incidents of gun violence in the Southeast Asian country, prompting calls for stricter gun control.

After killing five members of staff and a 12-year-old at the Debsirin Nonthaburi School on the outskirts of Bangkok, the boy turned the handgun, which belonged to his grandfather, on himself.

Police said the boy likely learned to handle a gun on social media as he had watched violent content and shown a strong interest in learning to use firearms.

They said anxiety about his studies and problems at home likely contributed to his actions.

A few days later, a former lawmaker shot dead a government official, whom he described as a long-time friend, for refusing to return the money he owed. The incident also occurred in Nonthaburi.

Thailand has one of the highest rates of civilian gun ownership in Southeast Asia, with nearly 10.3 million firearms in private hands, and correspondingly high levels of gun crime. Officials estimate a further four million weapons are held without licence, and the government is considering ways to persuade their owners to surrender them.

Carrying guns in public was banned in late 2023, with owners required to keep weapons at home or at a shooting range.

Campaigners for tighter controls want mental health assessments included into the permit process and existing permits reviewed periodically, neither of which the current system requires.

Mr Anutin has said he also wants stricter controls on ammunition while the education minister has proposed screening pupils at school gates.

At the Debsirin Nonthaburi School, children returned to classrooms on Monday, some passing through metal detectors installed over the weekend. Mourners gathered at a temple in Nonthaburi on Tuesday, where officials paid their respects to those killed.

The mass shooting was Thailand's deadliest in nearly four years. A former police officer killed at least 36 people, most of them small children, at a nursery in Nong Bua Lamphu in the northeast in October 2022. That attack had also prompted promises of tighter gun laws.