Given that the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550 (2007), did not recognise the right to bear arms as a constitutional right, the local firearm registrar shall have discretion over the issuance of a firearm and ammunition licence in accordance with Section 7 and Section 9 of the Firearms, Ammunition, Explosives, Fireworks, and the Imitation Firearms Act, B.E. 2490 (1947). Without the recognition of the inherent right to bear arms in the Constitution of the Kingdom of Thailand, B.E. 2550 (2007), the rejection order of an application for a licence for a firearm and ammunition shall not be deemed as an administrative order that may affect the rights of the parties in the manner that requires the local firearm registrar to give the parties an opportunity to sufficiently know the facts and to present their evidence opposing thereto before issuing the administrative order according to Section 30 paragraph one of the Administrative Procedure Act, B.E. 2539 (1996). In other words, when the Plaintiff submitted an application for a licence for a firearm and ammunition, the said application did not have any rights as its legal basis; thus, the rejection of firearm licence issuance by the Defendant No. 1 was just as an affirmation of the fact that there was no such right of the Plaintiff to be affected by the administrative proceeding to begin with. Providing that the Plaintiff already acquired five firearms, the Defendant No. 1 lawfully exercised his discretion to reject the issuance of the new licence for the firearm and ammunition on the basis that the firearms in possession of the Plaintiff are deemed to be far beyond necessary for the purpose of defending oneself and one’s properties.
