“Somali pirates hijacked an oil products tanker off Yemen, a Somali maritime security official said, the latest in a resurgence of piracy that has seen six commercial vessels seized since April across the Gulf of Aden and western Indian Ocean,” ABC News reported Saturday. “The International Maritime Bureau recorded 38 piracy and armed robbery incidents worldwide during the first half of 2026, including five hijackings. Somali pirates accounted for 94% of crew members taken hostage during that period, the bureau said.”
Attacks are so frequent that the IMO publishes monthly piracy reports. The situation is hardly new.
“Thomas Jefferson wages America’s first war on Terrorism,” a Colonial Williamsburg post reminds us. “Jefferson knew firsthand that nothing short of force could change the situation.”
That truth continues to the present, and modern piracy is something I’ve been writing about for decades, focused on one other truism: When seconds and minutes count, the Navy is hours and sometimes days away.
Crews aren’t armed. So there is no way to repel prepared, committed attackers.
The following is from “A Pirate’s Life for Me!,” one of my GUNS & AMMO columns from 2002 (no link included because it is not online):
Hoses against weapons. Trembling behind hatches. Everything but standing up on your sea-legs and fighting. How about just opening fire on them?
The IMO’s Captain Hartmut Hesse says armed guards on ships “will only increase violence, it will not deter the pirates.”
The IMO guide Piracy and Armed Robbery Against Ships, cautions “The carrying and use of firearms … is strongly discouraged. [It] may encourage attackers to carry firearms thereby escalating an already dangerous situation, and any firearms on board may themselves become an attractive target for an attacker. The use of firearms requires special training and aptitudes and the risk of accidents… is great.”
…Agreeing with Captain Hesse, and chastising Lloyd’s List for editorially suggesting otherwise, is Captain John Dalby of Marine Risk Management, a “maritime asset recovery and protection” company. While admitting “It is the sailors… who are being kidnaped, beached, set adrift … or summarily killed,” he warns that “only tragedy will result from inexperienced people trying to fight fire with fire. Leave intervention and reaction to those who are best equipped and trained for it.”
I reiterated the folly of the situation in a 2009 Gun Rights Examiner article, “Dead Men Tell No Tales,” recounting among other examples of academic cognitive dissonance how a co-ed learned to use hoses “against seasoned armed cutthroats.” And the nonsense continues.
As per the IMO’s “Recommendations to Governments for preventing and suppressing piracy and armed robbery against ships”:
It should be borne in mind that importation of firearms is subject to port and coastal State regulations… For legal and safety reasons, flag States should strongly discourage the carrying and use of firearms by seafarers for personal protection or for the protection of a ship. Seafarers are civilians and the use of firearms requires special training and aptitudes and the risk of accidents with firearms carried on board ship is great. Carriage of arms on board ships may encourage attackers to carry firearms or even more dangerous weapons, thereby escalating an already dangerous situation. Any firearm on board may itself become an attractive target for an attacker.
So, what about private security?
The use of privately contracted armed security personnel on board ships may lead to an escalation of violence.
That, and both they and “military, or law enforcement officers duly authorized by the Government of the flag State to carry firearms for the security of the ship is a matter for the flag State to authorize in consultation with shipowners, companies, and ship operators.”
Bottom line, if you’re just a crew member, face it, you’re probably from a Third World country and the last person in the world they want to entrust with a gun (although Democrats would be happy to facilitate your “migrating” to the U.S.).
And the same Democrats who demand disarming you and make excuses for criminals do the same for pirates.
Al Sharpton considers them “voluntary Coast Guard.” And Somali pirate chief Red Teeth is an “environmentalist.”
“The Somalis had no choice but to take revenge on foreign shipping and earn a living by ransom demands,” Bob Astles argued in Black Star News, a paper started with seed money provided by Bill Cosby (a guy who knows a thing or two about no choice). Astles was an unrepentant Idi Amin loyalist who “humiliated his fellow expats, who branded him ‘the white rat,’ by forcing them to kneel before Amin.”
There’s an interesting recent article at The Volokh Conspiracy by Second Amendment scholar Stephen Halbrook titled “Second Amendment Roundup: The Militia of the Sea — The Marque and Reprisal Clause as Textual Proof of Private Heavy-Arms Ownership at the Founding.”
“Let’s go privateering,” Prof. Glenn Harlan Reynolds of Instapundit recommends.
Just make sure to dot all the “i’s” and cross all the “t’s”.
Since that’s just not likely to happen, expect “Look at me. I’m the captain now” to be the continued norm.
About David Codrea:
David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.
