CURRENT international law may forbid merchant vessels to be armed. But there is nothing in the traditional Law of the Sea that would make any such requirement. I assume this is a typical piece of UN/EU/Wimp nonsense, and I think we should work on reversing it--or else ignore it.
In the old days, merchant ships were ALWAYS armed. A few small cannons, cutlasses, pistols, etc. How else would you deal with pirates?
East India convoys might have armed escorts, but ordinary trading vessels certainly did not.
It was not good form to run out your guns when coming into a friendly harbor, but the guns were there, behind the closed gunports.
If we don't rethink this whole business and DO something promptly, piracy is going to revive all over the world. Why not? How can they lose, if no one is going to put up a fight?
This reminds me of school days. The bully gets to pick on whomever he will, and when anyone responds in kind, the whole class gets in trouble.
Pea-brained Liberalism 1-A