I really shouldn't even have to point this out, but shooting clays has almost nothing in common with hitting a ship bigger than two football fields.
ummm... where to begin here... have you ever ridden in a zodiac in stage 3 seas? have you ever fired a shoulder fired rocket? I have never attempted the two at the same time, because it is a genuinely bad idea. Hitting a Main battle tank with a rocket is genuinely difficult at 200 yards, in a kneeling position with no additional factors. Combat stress makes it more difficult and rolling seas makes it infinitely moreso... basically same odds as hitting a flying helicopter (don't believe hollywood, unless it's taking off or landing it's NOT GOING TO HAPPEN) at full speed. Even if the ship is huge, an effective kill shot is going to be relatively small area (20 square meters or so), not to mention the fact that ransoming the crew requires you not sink the ship. While many of these pirates do carry rpgs, I have yet to read about a ship being rocketed.
Also, in response to an earlier post regarding the differences between pirates and terrorists: kidnapping and extortion are comon weapons in the terrorist arsenal, as are drug trafficking and extortion. Add in the recent surge of fundamentalist islamic revolutionaries in and about the Somalian sphere of influence and it's not too hard to imagine that at least some of these pirates have economic or idealogical ties to terrorists. So, as far as I'm concerned, the response of an individual or a government should be the same: no deals, no talking; mess around with the USA and get hurt where you live.
You don't like it? Move to France, commie.