Dead men tell no tales

 [From my 2009 Gun Rights Examiner article-- internal links may not work]

Har! Pirates there still be, and a scurvy, treacherous lot they remain.

But forget the United States Senate and its confirmation of Eric Holder for a moment, and set sail with us to the California Maritime Academy in Vallejo, CA, where:

[P]rofessor Donna Nincic teaches two courses on piracy. Students learn where the piracy hotspots are and how they have shifted over the years.

Shoot, Donna, you don't need a course for that. All you need is a Google News search.

So what's an able-bodied seaman to do?

Emily Rizzo, a student at the Massachusetts Maritime Academy in Buzzards Bay, Mass., worked aboard a 760-foot cargo ship last year as part of her training. As the vessel sailed the Malacca Straits in Southeast Asia, she served on "pirate watches," learned to use hoses and took part in drills with alarms indicating the ship had been boarded.

Hoses? Wielded by coeds against seasoned armed cutthroats? I thought Professor Donna was quoted as saying "this isn't a joke"...?  There's nothing more effective the eggheads can think of?

In the old days, ships were armed with cannons to guard against pirates. But nowadays, crew members for the most part do not carry guns. And maritime instructors say that arming crews is not the answer.

It is illegal for crews to carry weapons in the territorial waters of many nations, and ship captains are wary of arming crew members for fear of mutinies, Nincic said. Also, some worry that arming crew members would only cause the violence to escalate.

So "the best defense is vigilance"? I guess somehow knowing which alarm tells you your ship is being boarded and being fully aware of your throat being slit while the rapists are still passing you around...does what, exactly?

Oh right, it lets you deploy "water hoses and... floodlights" against "automatic weapons and grenade launchers." I notice Professor Donna's publicized credentials don't tell us how many pirate attacks she has successfully repelled?

So how's this "best defense" working out?

[There's] an alarming number of tankers and cargo ships getting hijacked on the high seas [and a] record number of attacks worldwide in 2008 by outlaws who seize ships and hold them for ransom...

The International Maritime Bureau reported 293 piracy incidents in 2008, an increase of 11 percent from the year before. Forty-nine vessels were hijacked, and 889 crew members were taken hostage. Eleven were killed and 21 reported missing and presumed dead, according to the bureau.

I wrote about this back in 2002, an article titled "A Pirate's Life for Me," for Guns and Ammo magazine. The "experts" were reporting the same record increases back then, and offering the same "solutions."

The only thing that has changed is the pirate industry has grown. Is it really any wonder?

"The Exiled" offers a tongue-in-cheek solution that makes more sense than anything coming out of the International Maritime Organization or any of its cheerleader academies:

I have a better defense system to suggest to the cruise lines. It’s called the LRHLD, or “long range hot lead dispenser,” also known as a heavy machine gun. I would love, totally love, the job of Secretary of Defense on one of these love boats, sunning on deck and drinking whatever those tropical drinks are called and every few days getting the call, “Oh Gary, pirates off the stern!” I’d sigh and moan and waddle over to the machine gun and turn the barrel a few degrees and watch the little splashes get closer and closer to the speedboat until I got full Halo 3 points for it, then go back to the serious work of tanning.

Laugh because it's funny, but if you're thinking of laughing because it's impractical, ask yourself this: If you intended to board a vessel by force, who would you rather face? Vigilant Professor Donna with her firehose, or Gary, with his umbrella drink and his LRHLD?

You know, our Constitution provides for Congress issuing Letters of Marque and Reprisal, and maybe where US interests are involved that could be an option. If the maritime industry as a whole ever gets smart, they'll start treating pirates like a resource...a commodity, offer up bounties to privateers, and let the marketplace demonstrate its ingenuity. The only problem I can foresee is you might have trouble recouping a large investment in outfitting and training because you'd soon run out of inventory...I mean, pirates-- and the line of work would be perceived as too dangerous to attract replacement stock...I mean, new recruits.