Dean Weingarten has a good find at Ammoland.
Judge Eduardo Ramos, the U.S. District Judge for the Southern District of New York, has issued an Opinion & Order that a ban on stun guns is constitutional. A New York State law prohibits the private possession of stun guns and tasers; a New York City law prohibits the possession and selling of stun guns. Judge Ramos has ruled these laws do not infringe on rights protected by the Second Amendment of the United States Constitution.
Let's briefly…… [read more]
Vitaly Aleksandrovich Nikolayenko was a prominent Russian brown bear researcher (Asian version of the American brown or grizzly bear) who routinely and closely approached bears without a firearm. He did this for 33 years, from 1970 to December 2003. In December 2003, he followed a bear that had come out of hibernation in the winter until the bear attacked him, killed him, and ate him. His use of bear spray had failed to stop the bear. His was the first recorded fatal failure of bear spray. The killing was the culmination of several lucky escapes over the years of his association with brown bears.
It won’t be the last either. Dean also recounts the life and philosophy of Timothy Treadwell, a sorry excuse of an adventurer because he went into the bush with naivety.
A North Carolina man took a creative and goofy approach to bear deterrence —stepping out of his house in a bear suit to spook away a black bear that had plunked down on his lawn.
It worked for Rodney Clark of Asheville, North Carolina, as evidenced by media interviews and a video making the rounds on news outlets and social media.
However, some Wyomingites said trying that tactic on a grizzly bear would probably get a person mauled, possibly killed — or perhaps even worse — molested by the bear.
Ignore all other “authorities” on handguns and bear defense (at least regarding statistics and history). Dean rules.
With that said, I think I’d rather have a larger bore handgun for bear defense. If 9mm works, I presume it’s because of shot placement or number of rounds.
In a press release, the RCMP explained that the father and son “had been tracking a bear with dogs” when the adult grizzly suddenly attacked the son. The two men were hunting on a steep mountainside south of Elkford, which lies in the Canadian Rockies just west of the Alberta border. Both men were locals, according to the RCMP, and the son lives in nearby Sparwood. “The man suffered serious injuries,” the RCMP said, “including broken bones and lacerations to his body during the attack.”
At some point during the attack, the son was able to shoot the bear with the firearm he was carrying. Neither the RCMP nor the BCCOS have shared any details about the firearm used, but it was likely the same rifle or shotgun he would have been using to hunt black bears; Canada has strict laws prohibiting hunters from carrying handguns unless they have a special license or explicit permission from the government.
Presumably he used a long gun to dispatch the bear. I would rather have a long gun than a handgun, but the advantage of the handgun is rapid deploy-ability.
Assuming you have the long gun in low ready, I would have to surmise that this is just a failure to respond to get off a shot before his father was wounded by the bear.
It would be interesting to know the style and make of the long gun.
I really like Dan Becker, and I especially like his faith commitment to Christ.
However, I think he got sold a bill of goods by interviewing someone who claims to have the last word on the gun versus bear spray debate.
It’s no debate in my book. I will never go into the bush without a large bore pistol. End of story. And all of what this “expert” claims are potential pitfalls of use of a firearm aren’t really pitfalls in my book, and I also think he ignores the potential pitfalls of the use of bear spray. If you’re worried about your ability to use a firearm under pressure, carry a revolver in a shoulder holster. A revolver is simple to use.
For my part, I’ve carried a .44 magnum wheel gun, but if I am carrying 450 SMC ammunition, I’ll carry it in a 1911 (with an enhanced recoil spring, i.e., 22#), with a round chambered and on safe, which is an advantage with the 1911 design. It’s easy to sweep the safety off while raising the pistol. A Hill People Gear kit bag worn on my chest puts this within hand’s reach of being able to deploy it.
Dan, if you’re listening, if you want another perspective on this by someone who has compiled the largest, most well-researched catalog of bear attacks and how well firearms do, contact Dean Weingarten (who writes at Ammoland).
On the evening of September 30, a sow grizzly bear charged an elk hunter in thick timber near Henry’s Lake, Idaho. According to an Idaho Department of Fish & Game (IDFG) press release issued this morning, the hunter yelled to alert his partner about the charging bruin before firing several shots from his sidearm that killed the bear “only a short distance way, before it was able to make contact.”
“The hunter immediately called the Citizens Against Poaching hotline to report the incident,” the press release states. “Idaho Department of Fish and Game responded to the call and conducted a thorough investigation. It was determined that the hunter acted in self-defense during a surprise encounter with the bear from a very close distance.”
This is incomplete reporting because we aren’t informed of the handgun make and caliber. But at least the outcome is clear.
A 73-year-old woman was mauled by a bear while walking with her husband and their dog in Montana near Glacier National Park on Sunday, officials have announced. The woman’s husband used bear spray to get the beast off his wife and they were able to make it back to their vehicle and drive to a location where they could call emergency services at around 3 pm.
Between bear spray and a large bore handgun, you know which one I’d choose.
They’re lucky that sow didn’t claw their eyes out and then rip their hearts out and eat it in front of the cubs as an object lesson.
I await comment by “The Alaskan.”
Three guys springing towards a bear and two cubs; one with some papers and one carrying a child. What exactly was the plan here? pic.twitter.com/VgDmR68CrS
This is an utterly fascinating video, and may be the first of a kind. I spend time finding fascinating things for you that enable learning about nature, and machines and their operation, especially firearms. I hope you appreciate it. This apparently is a recent encounter in Yellowstone.
Believe it or not, the black bear backed down the grizzly, with the grizzly even running from the black bear. For a while. The grizzly eventually came in for the food, with the black bear wandering off (probably when he figured out that there would be a fight and someone would get hurt – which incidentally is probably the reason the grizzly ran from the black bear to begin with). They were both wise bears that day.
