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« Piracy and arming crews | Main | Interesting mandatory sentencing case »

Arms vs. pirates

Posted by David Hardy · 29 April 2009 09:51 AM

A cruiseship captain issues handguns and the crew uses them to fend off Somalian pirates. Two warning shots in the air and the pirates (who had AKs) bailed out, surprised that the crew actually had guns. (I find this story receiving little play in the US media. I guess that a person held hostage by pirates makes for a string of emotional stories, whereas Long John Silver bailing out after a few warning shots does not).

But the Maersk Line still says no to defensive arms aboard:

"“Weapons onboard could lead to a dangerous escalation and raise a number of multi-jurisdictional legal issues,” the company said in a statement as it continued with its inquiry into the Maersk Alabama hijack, when US Navy personnel shot and killed three of the pirates who were holding the ship’s captain hostage."

8 Comments | Leave a comment

Diogenes | April 29, 2009 11:06 AM | Reply

I had a long and cogent commentary about why this situation will change, but the spam filter killed it...

brian | April 29, 2009 11:58 AM | Reply

They need rifles in the safe, not handguns....

JT | April 29, 2009 1:48 PM | Reply

I don't know if the article was updated since Dave posted it, but it goes into quite a bit of detail about how the passengers fighting back is what delayed the pirates' boarding action long enough for the security officers to be issued their handguns (which were locked in a safe, not carried on their persons) by the captain and get to a position to return fire.

The lesson that Average Joes need to take from this (and Prof. Librescu at Virginia Tech, and United Flight 93)?

Whatever you do, Don't Go Gently Into That Good Night!
Instead, FIGHT BACK, with whatever's at hand - if it's a gun, all the better.

zippypinhead | April 29, 2009 4:47 PM | Reply

The Somali pirates are businessmen, not Jihadist fanatics. They don't want to die in battle. They want to get rich. Which explains why they finally broke off the attack when confronted with a couple of pistol shots. I daresay that merely announcing that some non-trivial percentage of the commercial ships in the area have security teams armed with even garden-variety semi-automatic .308s (which have both superior range and accuracy compared with the 7.62x39 AKs the pirates are bobbing around with) is likely to cause many of the pirates to go find a less risky line of work.

Eric | April 29, 2009 5:00 PM | Reply

JT is correct. The most interesting part of the article is the fact that the passengers fought back immediately, and prevented the pirates from getting on the ship. Had one or two pirates with automatic rifles gotten on board while the captain was trying to remember the combo to the safe, we would be reading about a cruiseship-sized hostage situation.

Aussie Veteran | April 29, 2009 5:50 PM | Reply

From my experience in the '80's, many ships entering our ports in Aus were carrying small numbers of firearms for protection at the time. What's happened? Have the companies gone soft and warm and fuzzy?

As said before, the pirates are businessmen who want profit. The potential exists for a hostage type situation, of course, but that's easily solved. Eradicate the bases, and anyone in them, and you eradicate the problem.

The western world is getting far too soft to survive in this modern world. Not enough of us are prepared to fight back.

oldblinddog | April 30, 2009 6:31 AM | Reply

Weapons onboard could lead to a dangerous escalation and raise a number of multi-jurisdictional legal issues,” the company said in a statement as it continued with its inquiry into the Maersk Alabama hijack, when US Navy personnel shot and killed three of the pirates who were holding the ship’s captain hostage.

Maybe requiring the shippers to repay the costs of the "dangerous escalation" that resulted from NOT having firearms aboard to the .gov would change their outlook.

Hartley | April 30, 2009 8:29 AM | Reply

Aussie, you should check on your country's rules about weapons aboard vessels nowadays - a private yacht arriving there with a weapon aboard will be treated rather badly. I don't know about commercial ships, but for the little guys, it is a complete no go.

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