“Shapiro noted the effectiveness of privately hired armed guards on board merchant ships in deterring the pirates. “Not a single ship employing armed guards has been successfully pirated,” he said.
…
Ransom payments encourage pirates to continue their activities, Shapiro said. “We continue to urge against paying ransom,” he said, noting it only “makes piracy an increasingly lucrative proposition.”

I would agree, but for one problem.

According to what I have read, legal requirements dictate that in many cases, the shooter to whom you refer would be limited to the use of shotguns. I can’t imagine that these would be any match for the long range assault rifles with which the pirates are typically armed.

So whilst your suggestion would appear to make logical sense, I’m not particularly convinced that it would work in practice.

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Convoys sound like a very good idea to me, and I would certainly imagine that vessels travelling in group would be far less vulnerable than those which are all out on their own. Wonderful suggestion.

I agree with your broader comment as well. Somalia suffers from a whole range of problems onshore, and it will be difficult to solve the problem of piracy while there are so many people living in an environment of lawlessness and extreme poverty.

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Based upon what I have read, the Somali pirates could almost certainly be considered to be brazen thieves.

However, I don’t think they are generally killers. Indeed, from what I have heard, in almost every case, both crew members and the vessels are released unharmed after the ship-owner has paid an agreed sum for a ransom, and rarely do crew members suffer physical injury or inhumane treated (apart from the simple fact of being held captive) during the process of captivity.

Indeed, it is in their interest to release crew and vessels unharmed. If they didn’t ship-owners would stop meeting ransom demands.

So whilst the pirates can well be considered to be thieves, I do not feel that they could be considered to be killers or murderers.

With regards to confrontation, I feel that it is important that any country contemplating such an action must comply fully with the requirements of international maritime law. With that in mind, any country which has warships in the area should ensure that their navy officers are operating under clear and specific rules of engagement.

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The long term solution is to help Somalia become a stable country, without this in my opinion, i see no solution.

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Diplomacy is great if the folks you are talking to are willing to listen.. would it had been best to just give them their request? Or let them take lives to get what they want?

If an occasion like this arises, and ALL the thieves that look to do the same thing which is to kill and steel, I think that you give them their chance, which they had ample time to step down… then when diplomacy fails, blow them out of the water! The next pirates that try and do the same thing.. no talks, just blow them out of the water! It won’t talk long for them to get the message that what they are doing is wrong and they’ll see what the end results will be if they try to steel and kill!