Reality Check

Firearms20Aboard20and20Piracy20-20SailNet20Community

Apparently this is a pretty “hot button” issue.

Americans are considered “arrogant” by many Europeans - and a good portion of that belief appears to come specifically from the Rights and Freedoms enjoyed by Americans.

In the thread on Sailnet.Com (an excellent resource for Sailors by the way) the question was initially asked about the idea of taking guns on your personal vessel with you while cruising.

For the uninitiated, “Cruising” is traveling from place to place on a boat (usually a sailboat) either you alone, or you and a significant other or even whole families. Iin July of 2007, Robert brings up the question about “hassles” and guns on board.

The very FIRST post in response is from a moderator on the site who says “Leave the Guns at Home”. The Moderator “CruisingDad” states that “For all the hype and movies, Piracy really is few and far between in this hemisphere.”

While this might have been true in July 2006, the news tells us a different story these days. In fact, a quick and dirty google search on piracy in the news today shows there are 19,000 plus stories on piracy in the news. That’s just today.

Around the world today, China has had to deal with pirates and thus have joined the fight against them. Certainly there are many more such attacks according to the news, on merchant vessels than against privately owned yachts, but there are still such attacks against private yachts.

Mainly in the Western Hemisphere, Venezuela appears to have the worst problems. In both September and November two separate men were killed on their private boats. There have been many attacks, including an attack on a French citizen sailing a Lagoon 410 catamaran named Chrysalide, who was killed on September 15th aboard his boat near La Guaraia, Venezuela, close to the capital of Caracas.

In November Kenneth D. Peters, 55 was killed by pirates. He tried to defend himself with a weapon. The details of what happened are sketchy (I can’t find any good details from witnesses at this time) so we don’t know Mr. Peter’s abilities with a weapon or what the pirates were after.

Essentially, if there have been pirate attacks, your best bet is to stay away from that region if you’re traveling there by yacht.

Me… I’ll carry my weapons. And the Europeans and everyone else that calls me “arrogant” can continue to do so. I don’t begrudge them their right to speak their mind, and they ought not begrudge me my right to defend myself against pirates.