There have been a lot of electrons forcibly arranged over this topic, but I've noticed a discrepancy between the media's hand-wringing and the comments of the (apparently) general public commenting on it.
I don't think I go out on too long a limb when I say that most people don't care what happens to pirates. I saw some analogies to attempted home invasion, and armed persons bent on committing illegal acts are subject to potentially violent interdiction under the laws of any country.
It is therefore a bit disquieting ('tho not surprising) to see all these clowns worrying about what the pirates will do in retaliation for three of them being killed while holding a sailor hostage at gunpoint. Do we not punish criminals because we're afraid of what their compatriots will do? Sure there's a bit of that on a local basis in a lot of places. In a lot of northern Canadian towns I've heard anecdotally that the minimal RCMP detachments have a live-and-let-live arrangement with the local organized crime figures within certain recognized behavioral boundaries, but this is certainly NOT policy.
People have police and military so that they can be protected from various threats. The idea that we are afraid to deal with a problem to prevent it from getting worse does not appeal to taxpayers, or, in this case, sailors and the companies that own the ships. Bending over and taking it doesn't make thugs go away, they just send their friends to get some too.
.50 cal HMGs (Browning M2 or DShK) are neither rare nor particularly expensive (ranging from big plasma TV to used motorcycle in real-world money terms) and one of those fore and aft on any ship and you can sort out any pirates you're going to encounter in the Gulf of Aden. I'm sure there are legal implications to the possession of these weapons, but if you shoot up a bunch of armed pirates on the high seas you are better tried by 12 than carried by 6. I'm not sure, but I think it being the high seas and all you can defend yourself as you see fit. If anyone knows for sure one way or the other, fill me in.
"Shoot on Sight" would do the job nicely, but in absence of arming the merchant ships, what are the options? Convoying is apparently out, as time is money and the devil-take-the-hindmost attitude of peacetime Just-in-Time delivery seems to spike it right out of the gate. I've read some stuff that advocates taking out the pirates' shore bases, but those too lilly-livered to shoot them in flagrante delicto will scarcely countenance preemptive strikes on fishermen.
That's not an irrelevant problem, but it's not mine to solve even if people actually listened to me. There may well be some escalation, and a good test of how "overstretched" the US military is will come if another US-flagged ship gets taken, especially if people are killed. A precedent has been (haltingly and painfully slowly) set, so things will be interesting to watch from a distance.
One last thing occurs to me on this; there is definitely a market here for military contractors (old term: mercenaries). If carrying your own weapons on a merchant ship is too problematic, hiring reputable professionals is likely cheaper and more certain than the insurance you'll need as this gets worse. Enterprising types could set up in some country along the route, and hook up in international waters bringing aboard any required weapons (heavy or otherwise), debarking at the other end, or switching to other ships headed back the same way.
Free enterprise isn't dead; the response to the pirates' version could be market-driven too. A few more swashes may have to be buckled before this scurvy crew decides to desist, it's just a question of who will be willing to do what's necessary.
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