[cdestroyer]

quote bargainhunter""""ahem"""".....swell you go right on ahead and try it!

[Chief Joseph]

[Vertec]

[Vertec]

[BigBrunyon]

[cdestroyer]

the one thing that is so annoying about text messages is that people have such small worlds they live in and don't seem to be able to extrapolate what they read into a bigger scenario.. a quote from a star trek movie with 'spock' during a court hearing,,,Quote, If i am on a Gravity positve planet and drop a hammer I need not look to ensure that it has indeed fallen to the ground. If I have to go into great detail about not being able to kill a 800 pound charging boar grizzly bear by someone not a great white hunter used to placing their shots in a dollar size target in the heat of battle then what is the use in posting in the first place. Cannot you not get the bigger picture and know YOU will not kill a gizzly bear with a f***** handgun I don't care how many times you hit it if you can even hit it while faciing such a situation...and you probably won't even read this all the way through and think and understand before reposting....I carried a handgun for years,,,44 mag to be precise, shot a large coyote at 40 feet which made it hop, sag a bit and kept running, second round made it skip but it was still running. I do believe it died from the wounds but it did not outright kill it. to big a gun just poked holes in it. I went back to carrying a 357mag only to realize years later people I encounted thought me rather macho for doing so, and carrying a double rifle or shotgun seemed a bit much so I quite carrying at all. Of course that was the time I did actually meet a griz on the trail...golly gee whiz setch a long winded fool here!

[CS]

Basically if bear psychology fails, and they don’t keep away or run off in fear after you retaliate, then the results aren’t that different from a human attacker it seems. Spray and bullets aren’t always effective against humans either, and spray definitely makes the human angry.

[Randito]

My big take away from the sad event is that the woman that was killed after fending off the bear with bear spray , went back to bed in her tent where the attack occurred and then was attacked again sometime later. Leaving the area seems like it would have resulted in a better outcome. Bear spray only gives you a reprieve from an attack. A properly place slug from a 12 gauge will kill a grizzly with some reliability. Personally I don't see myself going back to bed and falling asleep after either fending off a bear with spray or killing it with a firearm. I would have too much adrenaline to get any shuteye after such an encounter.

[DadFly]

I always advise my wife and daughters to carry bear spray. Expect to need to use it multiple times on a bear. Once is usually enough on a human attacker. In all cases exit the area. Or carry a bazooka and hand grenades. In 60 years of frequent wilderness adventures I have been charged twice by bears. Once by a desperately hungry young black bear probably just turned away from his momma. The other time was by two Griz yearling recovering from PCP. Their mother had been shot by FW&P and they were tranquilized and released where I was working. Thanks guys. Moose four times.

[cdestroyer]

cow moose with calf once stomped my fishing gear into the ground as I sat on very large boulder.

[Bernardo]

This author provides many examples where handguns where used effectively: Article on handgun effectivesness He claims to not be able to find many examples where handguns failed. Are there any recent examples where handguns failed that he ignored?

[cdestroyer]

this is not about how handguns failed but about how you the shooter failed in an unfamiliar panic situation being charged by a grizzly bear. Can you in that instant maintain enough calm to aim and shoot at vital points to kill the bear?????????????????

[Randito]

[Bernardo]

I am happy to debate and learn about this topic so long as it stays very friendly. I have no plans to hike in grizz country so it is purely academic for me. I did see two bears in the last week in the North Cascades. One small one ran like the dickens and the other just stared me down on the trail. I backed away round a corner and after a short while proceeded on with no bear in sight. While the author does apparently start with a pro-gun bias, he specifically asks for contrary evidence. He is very open about his data and describes the incidents he includes. The authors of other studies have biases too. We all do. I think many of us would prefer that other hikers not have handguns for example. Many hikers would never consider carrying a handgun so the absolute effectiveness of bear spray is an important topic regardless of its relative effectiveness compared to handguns. The author provides many examples where people in panic mode have used a handgun to kill a bear, even grizzly bears. He highlights that he has heard many times that handguns don’t work to defend against bears, but claims that he can’t find much reporting on incidents where handguns failed over a hundred years. It should be possible to refute this claim with reports from public sources if it‘s not true. I would be very interested in examples where handguns failed.

[timberghost]

With reguards to grizzly bears some of the info might be on the QT since in many places Where they are on the endangered species list. You have to prove your life was in danger or self defense to avoid prosecution. I have a friend that was on a moose hunt tending to cutting up the meat. The grizzly came in chopping its mouth. He fired a warning shot and the bear kept coming at 12 yards. He shot it in the nose killing it instantly as it rolled to his feet. Now most people would have panicked or filled their pants but he has experience around grizzly bears.