That might be it. Tbf I don't know much about modern piracy. I just imagine guys with AKs and RPGs coming up and boarding you, but that could easily be a media depiction only.
I don't think those guys are taking single people in small boats. They want $5M insurance payouts from corporations, not killing random people for their clothes.
They could, or it could chew up a hand pretty well, or turn a robbery into a multiple murder, or any number of things. A dog doesn’t respond predictably or rationally.
Criminal doesn’t mean stupid - and you’re not going to bother with a risky target when there are other, less risky targets nearby.
Angry guard dogs are fast and being low to the ground makes them difficult targets. One could easily cause serious injuries before being neutralized. If one knocks you down (which is very likely happen), then you also risk shooting yourself instead of the dog.
2) Plenty of other boats, why bother killing a dog and make lots of noise?
Exactly. A lot of people seem to forget that a gun discharging is even louder than a dog, so a would-be amateur pirate would be solving a small problem by creating a much bigger one.
People have guns in rural areas everywhere. There are some exceptions like China where guns are very uncommon but if you are traveling through Eastern Europe, or Africa, or rural parts of south Asia you are going to encounter a lot of people who have guns.
There isn’t a gun culture like in the US in these places though, so you’ll have to know what to look for.
People have some guns in rural places worldwide but you almost never encounter them. Gun ownership rates drop off fast after the US (I think the 10th highest country is 1/4 of the US rate) and the rates keep dropping from there. Also while rural farmers may own a shotgun or a rifle they mostly leave that locked up at home, the chances of you meeting someone with a gun is pretty tiny. Only exceptions I can think of are perhaps some Central American countries.
Agreed. Just got back from Marrakech there is very little crime there and certainly no baddies who would consider shooting your dog to rob you.
"gun culture" and people waving hand guns around for crime or "self defence" is, thankfully, limited to a small number of failed states, and the United States.
100% not true here and not in Eastern Europe. People in villages don't have guns everywhere.
Also, the one subgroup of villages who do have guns are actual mafia members. But their power is mainly in organization and in having bought cops. You having own gun will in no way help you if you are targetted. The rest of people have them generally only if they need them for job, very rarely otherwise.
Villagers don't have guns for fun either all that much, it is also costly. The self defense laws are also such that gun is likely yo get you in serious trouble.
The implied gun ownership rate given by the firearm suicide rate in Hungary, for example, is rather high. It is also surprisingly high in Austria. Neither are like the US of course, but unless the primary reason people own firearms in those countries is for suicide, more people own guns than you may imagine.
Granted, I did research on proxy gun rate estimators many years ago, using even older data, so it is possible that things have changed but I don't see why that would be the case.
There are lots of things that could skew this data. What suicide rate seems to be measuring is access to guns.
Lots of people in the police or other security forces have access to guns. Often people who have done military service have an issued gun at home (eg Switzerland I think). Military service generally overlaps with a time in life when males are more vulnerable to suicide.
In that region, mostly AK-47s and RPG-7s, plus whatever other random weapons they managed to scrounge. Same as every irregular paramilitary force throughout the Middle East and Africa.
All other issues aside, even assuming you can get the proper permissions, bringing guns into foreign ports is a major hassle and involves significant legal paperwork.
Companies that provide armed security for cargo ships for example will keep the weapons on a boat at sea in international waters, transfer them to the cargo ship at the beginning of their security detail, then take them off with another boat before the cargo ship proceeds.
During the height of the piracy in East Africa, seaborne armouries were used to distribute weapons which were thrown overboard before entering territorial waters, as it was cheaper than collecting them.
I also think some (almost certainly American) people underestimate how big an issue importing a firearm or possession of an unlicensed firearm can be in most of the world. It’s either many months of paperwork and almost guaranteed refusal, or risking many years in prison for an unlicensed firearm.
A dog is an audible warning before the fact and may scare off thieves/robbers before an attempt. A gun is in the best of all cases helpful once the thief or robber has already decided to act.
That's why I have a solenoid triggered rifle in my backyard that shoots off a round every two minutes. It used to be full auto 24/7, but ammo got expensive :(
