Gun deaths are on the rise in Malaysia. The first four months of 2013 alone have seen more premeditated firearms murders than in the whole of 2012. What is going on?
Businessman Tan Kok Soon was having dinner with his wife and two sons in a restaurant in the Oakland Commercial Centre in Seremban on April 14 when a gunman wearing a full-faced helmet walked up to their table and fired three shots into his back. Just two days earlier at a nearby traffic light junction, James John was shot and killed in his car by two men who discharged up to 12 rounds into their victim at close range.
These are among the rising number of people shot to death this year, some of whom have been high profile personalities. On April 26, Customs deputy director general Datuk Shaharuddin Ibrahim was fatally shot on his way to work at Putrajaya by the pillion rider of a motorcycle.
These premeditated firearms murders generally have three common elements: (i) the killer knows exactly who the target is and the kill plan as well as the escape plan, i.e. the murder is calculated and is neither a crime of passion nor a spur of the moment decision; (ii) guns are usually the weapon of choice; and (iii) most of these cases occur in public places.
