In the 18th century, here's how the British treated pirates: coat their bodies in tar, wrap them in chains, and publicly hang them from gallows at the harbor entrance. My guess: that wouldn't be acceptable today. Unfortunately.
Most maritime organizations oppose arming merchant ships. While I cheered the recent events off Somalia, it does raise serious concerns in the maritime community.
Why don't merchant ships arm themselves? I did some googling, and here's what I learned.
- Most sailors aren't trained to use weapons. "We're sailors, not soldiers," said one.
- No matter how ships arm themselves, pirates will come back with bigger guns. If you escalate, pirates will escalate more. You can end up with pirates sitting far off and bombarding the ship or raking it with machine gun fire.
- Arming ships will increase insurance costs, since insurance must now cover a range of liability and death situations.
- Most ports won't let an armed ship dock. Period. "Trust me, you aren't sailing into San Francisco with mercenaries carrying RPGs on board." Since a merchant ship may dock at many different ports, carrying weapons would be a problem.
- The cost of carrying armed private security forces would probably exceed the cost of a potential ransom.
- Ships carrying chemicals or gas don't want weapons aboard, and don't want to provoke a firefight.
- Shipping companies would rather pay ransom than risk crew members being killed. It's all a matter of liability costs.
- From a pirate's standpoint: if the crew is a threat, why not just kill them?
- If you're going to give guns to your sailors, you must provide weapons training. That would be a huge expense, and increase liability costs. (You don't just give handguns to pilots and think an airplane is safe.)
- Do we want foreign merchant ships sailing into American ports with cannons and machine guns?
- Pirates rarely kill commercial crews on large vessels (though yacht owners are frequently killed). Their goal is ransom (whereas on yachts, it's just thievery).
- How many sailors are willing to die to protect a rich ship owner's profit?
- If ships carried weapons, it might make them a greater target, as pirates seek to steal the weapons, too.
- Pirates have been a problem for many, many years, and merchant lines have learned to cope with the threat.
- If a crew member smuggles a weapon into certain port and gets caught, he could spend 5-10 years in a foreign prison.
- Military vessles are considered "sovereign territory" when visiting foreign harbors, but that courtesy is not extended to civilian vessles. So any weapons possession is subject to local laws.
- Nervous sailors could accidentally shoot innocent fishermen, who often approach merchant ships offering to sell their catch.
- In an armed confrontation with pirates, the chance is great that a sailor will be injured or killed. This raises huge liability issues for ship owners.
- Bringing weapons aboard ships is "strongly discouraged" by the United Nations International Maritime Organization.
- Many ship owners are less worried about piracy than they are that sailors will kill each other in personal disputes.
- A fight with pirates can create an international incident.
Ships now use non-lethal methods such as electric fences, water hoses, and long-range sound cannons, of which one person said, "It's the most annoying sound you've ever heard in your life--you literally cannot operate. It makes you nauseous."
Career-wise, I've been hanging around and writing about and cheering on churches and pastors for the past 25 years as my denomination's Communications Director.
Yes, they're all good arguments. Very reminiscent of the rules used for airplane hijackings prior to 9/11.
Merchant vessels used to be armed. Now they aren't.
How many of this is the result of sound reasoning on
handling the problems of piracy, and how much is just
the world-wide gun control lobby?
Apparently, I'm not equipped with the right
personality to work in the merchant marine: if my
choices are shoot back, or spend weeks or months as
a hostage, I'm going to shoot back.
Clearly, the maritime community's approach to
piracy isn't working off the coast of Africa.
I think a single 50 caliber machine gun would be enough to stop the pirates. Train a couple sailors, the pirates show up, fire off a few hundred rounds over their bow and my guess is when they see the tracers theyll high tail it out of there. Basically a .50 cal has a greater range than either AK's or rpg's so there would not be much risk to the sailors.
Another set of inane and idiotic rationalizations.All that is required are a few trained sailors in weapons handling and tactical strategies, and most pirate incidents can be avoided. All of these are excuses that empower the pirates.
Interesting list - thank you for putting it together!
Since this is a developing story I am wondering at what point it would become cost-effective to start arming the sailors.
Do you know if the navies use decoys off the WA coast?
Did ANY of you pay any attention? "Ports won't let armed ships dock." No matter how much you yahoos would just love a chance to shoot some pirates, ships are out there to make money, not to engage in firefights. No docking, no money.
Piracy has ZERO to do with 9/11. Totally different thing.
Do you have the sources for this list? Any legal sources?
As a merchant seaman I can tell you that the merchant
sailors would love to be armed, but I will also tell
that it would be a mistake because they aren't
properly trained in combat or conditioned to
adhere to the level of discipline required.
What is needed are deck mounted guns with military
personnel on board to man those guns. We also need
decoy yachts that look like pleasure craft but are actually military vessels with heavy steel hulls fully prepared to blow pirate boats out of the water. Simply
make it too heavy a price for the pirates to pay for
doing what they have been doing these many years.
One last thing. Blame the insurance companies first as
they are the main reason what I've suggested is not
being done.
The governments involved need to get behind this and if
they do it will be stopped.
anything that threatens them out of the water.
that threatens it.
"Piracy has ZERO to do with 9/11. Totally different thing. "
The pirates off of Somalia are members of a islamic group with links to al-qaeda.
Al-Qaeda reportedly funded pirates with cash to purchase weapons. Osama bin-Laden supported these pirates in a video footage aired on al-Jazeera. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Piracy_in_Somalia#History