What's Your Opinion? Firearms or Not?

[Pblais]

"Pirate Hunter" by Richard Zachs is a great book about Privateering as well as just a good read. It is the story of William Kidd. It's a well written researched historical account. It also is a good source about pirating in general since the bulk of the book is about the differences between the two (it's not much).

[GordMay]

At the conclusion of the Crimean War (1856), Great Britain, France, and the other major European countries declared privateering illegal by the Declaration of Paris.

The first article of the Paris Treaty states:
“Privateering is, and remains, abolished...”

Numerous states* ratified this declaration, including the United Kingdom, Austria-Hungary, France, Prussia, Russia, Sardinia and the Ottoman Empire, and others. This declaration bound only its signatories when at war with each other, and lets them free to use privateers when at war with other states.

* Excepting Spain, Mexico, Venezuela, and the U.S.A.
Spain did not accede to the treaty until 1908 and Mexico until 1909. I'm not certain that the USA has ever fully renounced "Letters of Marque".

The U.S. government refused to accede, holding that the small size of its navy made reliance on privateering necessary in time of war. However, the United States honored the declaration during the Civil War and then the Spanish-American War.

The declaration was further clarified by the Hague Convention (1907).

See also “The Declaration”:
Declaration Respecting Maritime Law. Paris, 16 April 1856
From: Washburn University Archive of Foreign and International Treaties
Declaration Respecting Maritime Law. Paris, 16 April 1856.

And:
The Evolution of Law of War ~ Sheng Hongsheng
The Evolution of Law of War -- Hongsheng 1 (2): 267 -- The Chinese Journal of International Politics

[Keegan]

Originally Posted by Boracay

To me it makes a lot more sense to line up the local police/army/navy etc. than to arm myself to the teeth.

For less than the price of a reasonable weapon I'm sure they would help.

The local police/army /navey in many countries will not come to your rescue. Maybe in OZ, but not in a lot of common cruising ground countries. You'd best be ready to fend for yourself.

Keegan

[Boracay]

I'm not expecting the marines to come to my rescue, but if there clearly is a problem then I would hope to encourage the authorities to increase their presence, possibly with more patrols or some other effort.

One person may not make a huge difference but if all cruisers make continual requests then we may see a result.

[hellosailor]

"if all cruisers make continual requests then we may see a result."
In my best mock-diplomatic accent:
Unlikely, old chap. You fellows don't pay taxes here and don't pay tribute. If you want protection do as the natives do, and pay up to the warlords. That's just the way the game is played.

In many parts of the world, if you can't afford to bring your own entourage and security forces, you're simply trash, not tourists, and your presence is not particularly required. Come back on a megayacht with your own helo on board, and you'll be given the name of the proper minister to call if you need assistance.

[44'cruisingcat]

It's very dissapointing that the US military stopped work on the Neutron bomb. That way all those pesky foreigners could have been cleared away from the nice cruising grounds, and it would save the hassle of carrying your own personal armoury.

[hellosailor]

"It's very dissapointing that the US military stopped work on the Neutron bomb. "
Ahuh. And you would know that for sure because...? < G >
Or perhaps no further work was needed. < G >

Wasn't it Huck Finn, or one of R.L. Stevenson's books, where folks relied on putting on fake puss blisters and hoisting a plague flag? I suspect a kit of ghoul make-up, some pea soup to puke up, and anguished plays of 'Help us, help us, no one will help us' might send them running just as quickly as projectile weapons.

Besides, do you have ANY idea what one good large caliber bullet costs these days?
< G >

[waterworldly]

I haven't read all the posts, but some have some comments that are rooted in my background in law enforcement. First, theives are theives, not killers. Raising the violence bar with the showing of deadly force does just that, raises the level of violence of the incident. When the persons that board want your stuff, that's all - so give it to them. As to the thoughts that they want to "have their way with you", in most cases that is Hollywood, not reality. They want your STUFF, not your booty. Moving on, if you start with a gun, and declare it (as you should, because if found you could forfeit the entire vessel for the lie), you are stuck to declare it at every subsequent port due to the paperwork from the previous port. Throwing it overboard will usually result in the conclusion it is hidden and result in a very complete search of your vessel, again, not a pleasant experience. Also, assume you are required to surrender it upon clearance at entry point 'A" and then cruise down to your desired exit point "B". Well, you have to go back to "A" to reclaim, or your paperwork with not be able to be completed to exit the country. Let's move on to the "incident". It's a dark and stormy night. You are in a foreign and strange ancourage. You are asleep and hear voices or worse, footsteps above. You take out your trusty gun and slowly open the hatch, seeing several shadowy figures. You yell in English, they reply in their language. It sounds threatening, they are moving towards you, they look very threatening in the dim light. You are nervous. The gun goes off, one falls to the deck, dead. The others jump off. Pirates thwarted! NO, local fishermen, seeing you are dragging, attempt to board to "help". You go to the gallows for murder, or life for murder, as the country you are in doesn't allow unlicensed weapons and the guy you shot is the brother of the mayor's wife.
In all my years since my retirement from law enforcement I have never owned gun, and I worked exclusively in the inner city where I have also resided. The stats are there. If you have a gun, you increase your chances of being seriously injured or killed in a confrontation by over 400%. BUT, as always the choice is yours, I just offer this as conclusions from the real world, not isolated incidents (they make the best stories, conpared to the thousands that this doesn't happen to), or the "reality" of movies and TV. On more thing, less than .05% of all police in all of time have actually fired their weapons in the line of duty.

[Knucklehead]

Having spent a large portion of my adult life carrying weapons, I have given this alot of thought. My preference is to use Tasers for in close and on board. First off, having to declare a weapon when arriving in another country's port is probably a hassel, whereas a Taser may not be classified as one and most likely not recognized as a weapon. The added benefit is that it is not likely to put a hole in your hull. Shoot someone prior to their boarding your boat is not a kewl thing to do. Heck they could be delivering a 'Red Cross' package to you.
karl

[Pura Vida]

Originally Posted by waterworldly

I haven't read all the posts, ...

Nothing special here, a few extreme examples, many of the talkiing points that the lobbies have published. It is reminicent of the "Movie City Slickers" where the vacationers are talking about cheating on their wifes,
Bruno Kirby, "Imagine this, A space ship comes down and a beautiful woman gets off."
Billy Chrystal, "Oh good, reality."

[Pura Vida]

As someone who has spent at least a part of his professional and academic life working in social research. I would be interested to know, how many posters/voters have posted to this thread within their first ten posts, how many posters have more than 50% of their posts in this thread, and how many posters have added multiple users to vote more than once.

[maxingout]

Waterworldly

Thanks for the post. It's good to hear from people in law enforcement.

I never considered carrying a weapon while I was cruising overseas, and you did a superb job of explaining why I never did. I never felt threatened anywhere in the world during our circumnavigation.

Now that I am back in the land of guns, the violent carnage on the streets of America scares the wits out of me. While I was living in Fort Lauderdale, they were holding up banks with AK-47s. People are armed to the teeth, and I can't tell when I'm driving down the highway whether I'm in a 38 caliber zone or a 45 caliber zone.

I lived in Australia and New Zealand for over five years, and while I was there I never heard of a single homicide with a gun. I'm sure they must happen from time to time, but not while I was there.

It's strange how people who live in violent countries often project their violence onto the rest of the world.

[hellosailor]

"I lived in Australia and New Zealand for over five years, and while I was there I never heard of a single homicide with a gun."
Dave, obviously the press down there have higher standards and don't cover the police blotter the same way they do up here. Don't worry, in places like Oz and NZ where they don't have MS13 or Crips and Bloods and the gangbanging isn't as noisy as it is in the US, there are still homicides. And the funny thing is, as the guns are banned, the homicide rates don't go down--they just shift to bats and knives and fists instead.

Given the choice of defending myself against a threat, I'd prefer to use any weapon that has a longer reach than the one being used against me. A longer sword is nice, but swords are heavy, it takes lots of time to sharpen them, and they're hell on the upholstery if you sit down.

[zardinuk]

Originally Posted by waterworldly

theives are theives, not killers

I wouldn't throw petty thieves into the same class as pirates. Anybody willing to enter your home at night aught to be anticipating the possibility of death, let alone someone chasing your boat and armed with assault rifles. In the US, anybody entering your house is game, shoot them in the back if you have to.

Originally Posted by waterworldly

As to the thoughts that they want to "have their way with you", in most cases that is Hollywood, not reality. They want your STUFF, not your booty.

One, I wasn't implying some sort of sexual crime, although a possibility, I just wouldn't want to submit to anybody with a gun, period. I don't want someone holding a gun to my head and telling me to turn around, you see what I mean. Two, why wouldn't they take advantage of the situation? If I were to put myself in the shoes of a pirate, I'd say "why the hell not? I've already committed heinous crimes, might as well get my jollies too". Are you saying that's not how criminals think? Put yourself in the shoes of a human trafficker.

Originally Posted by waterworldly

you are stuck to declare it at every subsequent port due to the paperwork from the previous port. Throwing it overboard will usually result in the conclusion it is hidden and result in a very complete search of your vessel, again, not a pleasant experience. Also, assume you are required to surrender it upon clearance at entry point 'A" and then cruise down to your desired exit point "B". Well, you have to go back to "A" to reclaim, or your paperwork with not be able to be completed to exit the country.

All good points, reason enough for most people to avoid it.

Originally Posted by waterworldly

Let's move on to the "incident". It's a dark and stormy night. You are in a foreign and strange ancourage. You are asleep and hear voices or worse, footsteps above. You take out your trusty gun and slowly open the hatch, seeing several shadowy figures. You yell in English, they reply in their language. It sounds threatening, they are moving towards you, they look very threatening in the dim light. You are nervous. The gun goes off, one falls to the deck, dead. The others jump off. Pirates thwarted! NO, local fishermen, seeing you are dragging, attempt to board to "help". You go to the gallows for murder, or life for murder, as the country you are in doesn't allow unlicensed weapons and the guy you shot is the brother of the mayor's wife. In all my years since my retirement from law enforcement I have never owned gun, and I worked exclusively in the inner city where I have also resided. The stats are there. If you have a gun, you increase your chances of being seriously injured or killed in a confrontation by over 400%.

Now this is where your logic doesn't add up. Your 400% figure can't possibly represent the reality of the situation, as the figures appear to mean, at least to me, that people with guns in their house are more often the victims of violent crimes, which would make sense. I'm sure most gang retaliation killings target someone with a gun. Your estranged husband tells you he's going to kill you, so you go out and buy a gun, and he kills you anyways. You see my point. Wouldn't a more relevant statistic be how likely I am to die if I pursue a criminal vs hiding? I will accept that people who lock themselves in a bedroom have better chances of survival in a burglary than the ones who go on the offensive, but gun or baseball bat, makes no difference, walking down the halls with an intruder in your house is dangerous. Why not lock the door, sit in the corner with the gun aimed on the door? I'd say that makes your odds of surviving astronomically good.

Anyways, the question is whether or not the trouble of carrying a gun is worth the benefit, which is ultimate defense against intruders (and perhaps the joy of target shooting, shooting a big catch, whatever). You have weighed in the possibility of an accidental shooting, which is not even worth considering in my opinion, unless you have small children on the boat with you, and that is where I see your logic is askew. By the way, for every one of you anti-gun cops, there are 100 with a closet full of assault rifles. Heh heh. Tell me this, in your law enforcement experience, what percentage of convenience store owners in the inner city keep a gun under the counter?

[waterworldly]

For Zardinuk (see above)
I'll address your queries one at a time. The 400% figure is accurate and is for the following reasons. First, the gun is presented to the intruder and immediately turns a theft into a life and death situation, causing the intruder (who is wide awake and quite on edge) to make the first move toward acutually using deadly force. Most homeowners are not properly trained or in the proper mindset to actually kill someone, while the intruder no doubt is amped up enough and scared enough to pull the trigger on a moments notice, whereas if you merely had yelled downstairs "HEY, whose down there, the police are on the way", the intruder would have high tailed it out of there.

Second reason: bad guys don't often drop dead when you shoot them (contrary to the movies and TV), and often, in an emergency situation, you don't shoot too straight, so a stuggle will ensue and often, with the entruder again amped beyond your expectations, will overpower you and you get shot with your own weapon.

Third, did you know that if a person is amped and runs at you with a knife, they will get to you even if you are shooting away, if they are within 50 feet of you when the first bullets fly? It's a fact. And no amount of weekend warrior training will prepare you properly for the fight of your life you will experience, no matter how well you shoot the cans off the log at 50 feet.

About store owners with guns, the number is much smaller than TV or movies suggest. Remember, violence sells, both entertainment and movies. Convenience stores get hit every day, many to be more specific, and how many times do you hear about the robbers getting shot?

Concerning the cops with gun stashes, those are often the BAD cops that should be off the street. They are a threat to all of us. And not as prevelent as you may think, and more often in suburban and rural areas where there is little action. I worked in the inner city and couldn't name one of my collegues that saw the carnage every day that would be considered a "gun nut".