Dean Weingarten • 5 years ago
Many people have claimed there are studies that show bear spray to be more effective than firearms. The studies (I have read all I can find) do not show that. They compare curious bears and bear spray with attacking bears and gunfire.
Here is a description by Dave Smith, who has authored books about how to avoid bear attacks, of the illegitimate nature of the comparison:
The purpose of Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska was to
denigrate firearms. Efficacy of Firearms for Bear Deterrence in Alaska
and Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska were 2 halves of a straw
man argument designed to prove bear spray was more effective than a gun.
The bear spray study only included incidents when people sprayed bears;
in 27% of the gun incidents, people did not have time to shoot. Just 10
of 72 bear spray incidents involved charging bears. About 60% of bear
spray incidents involved agency personnel spraying habituated bears in
national parks–when brown bears were sprayed, the sprayer had back-up, a
colleague armed with a 12 ga. shotgun. The “methods” for the gun study
said the authors analyzed “bear attacks.” When you compare the results
of these 2 studies, bear spray proved far more effective than firearms.
But you’ve got to be a totally unscrupulous, wildly unethical biologist
to compare the results of these studies. It’s kind of like crashing a
Toyota Tacoma head on into a wall at 100 mph, backing a Ford F150 into a
a wall at 5 mph, and then claiming research proves Fords are safer than
Toyotas.
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I have not seen any study that directly compares bear spray and firearms.
Of 63 documented attacks by bears, where pistols were used for defense, the pistols were 95% effective.
Barry Hirsh • 5 years ago
'Doesn't matter WHAT they want. I go in bear country, my first grab is a 45-70.
Screw that bear spray and the tree-huggin' horse it rode in on.
Western Watersheds, the group quoted, is called a "Conservation Group". I can't think of one thing they've conserved other than their checking account. In order to be a conservation group you need to conserve something. They are lawyers and writers. They publish a lot on the internet and make nutty lawsuits like this one.
Every year a few hunters get mauled and some get killed by grizzly bears. Maybe hunters know better than some wacko environmentalist who would get lost outside the city streets they are used to walking. Hunters created Yellowstone National Park in the first place, then saved every large mammal in N America. There will be more and more deaths by grizzly every year, they are overpopulated. Rather than worry about bear spray maybe those "pop environmentalists" should consider the human beings who actually spend time outside.