Use Of Firearms To Deter Pirates

Created by doina. Last modified on 2007-03-27 12:40:50
Contributors:
Topic: Self-defence and Deterring Attacks

Why is it that no one, in any of the accounts given on the Noonsite piracy pages, had so much as a hand gun to defend themself with? I am reading accounts of people fending off attackers with pepper spray, and pirates robbing people at knife poiint, and other accounts of people whose only defense seemed to be radioing for help and trying to outrun the attackers. Is there something I don't understand? Does carrying a firearm present excessive trouble in ports? Is it illegal to carry firearms on the open seas? Why are none of these yachts well-armed enough to defend themselves? From reading these accounts it is obvious most of these pirates are opportunistic, and would thus be easily deterred by gunfire - so why is this option never used or discussed? I am very curious about this.

Noonsite: The question of whether to carry firearms is of course a personal one and has been covered at length in the new edition of "World Cruising Survey" by Jimmy Cornell. A minority of yachts do carry guns, and of those that don't I would say the reasons for not doing so are several: it does mean an extra lot of hassle when clearing into basically all countries as guns have to be declared to customs and sealed onboard, sometimes taken ashore for the duration of the stay. Also many people feel a gun could aggravate a situation when attacked, and for persistent, well-armed pirates a whole arsenal would be needed. Far better to avoid trouble spots to begin with.

posted 2004