[Trav5]

It depends on why you are being attacked. From what I've read, Bear spray may not stop an attack. Especially if you are being seen as a food source for an animal in need.

Edit: Another google search just found a 2012 article [0] that is pro Bear spray to protect against Bears. (I did not read it all...) I'm more worried about Mountain Lions in my area. I do not carry bear spray or a gun. But I have thought about it quite a bit because I love being out there... The problem with Mountain Lions is that they are stealth hunters. So you you may not know they are there until it's too late. "Horizontal jumping capability from standing position is suggested anywhere from 6 to 12 m (20 to 40 ft)." [1]

[0] https://www.outsideonline.com/1899301/shoot-or-spray-best-wa... [1] https://twistedsifter.com/2010/09/top-ten-cougar-facts/

[sp332]

According to https://web.archive.org/web/20160820020105/http://www.polarb... and https://web.archive.org/web/20161222090849/http://www.polarb... Injuries were far more likely in incidents with firearms (56%) compared to bear spray (4%) with n = 352.

[i_am_proteus]

Please read papers thoroughly before citing! You are drawing a conclusion from these two studies that the authors themselves did not draw.

Note that during an overwhelming majority of the encounters in the bear spray study, the bears were classified as "not aggressive." Contrast this with the firearms study, which specifically looks at bear attacks in which the human defended him/herself with a firearm.

One should not be surprised that the study of bear attacks yields more injuries to humans! Most of the bears in the bear spray study were doing things like rummaging for food, not attacking people.

The best takeaway, in my opinion, is in the conclusion of the firearms study:

>Firearms should not be a substitute for avoiding unwanted encounters in bear habitat. Although the shooter may be able to kill an aggressive bear, injuries to the shooter and others also sometimes occur. The need for split-second deployment and deadly accuracy make using firearms difficult, even for experts. Consequently, we advise people to carefully consider their ability to be accurate under duress before carrying a firearm for protection from bears. No one should enter bear country without a deterrent and these results show that firearms are not a clear choice. We encourage all persons, with or without a firearm, to consider carrying a non-lethal deterrent such as bear spray because its success rate under a variety of situations has been greater (i.e., 90% successful for all 3 North American species of bear; Smith et al. 2008) than those we observed for firearms.

Carry the deterrent or deterrents of your choice, try to avoid encounters in the first place, and practice using whatever it is that you carry, because neither firearm nor spray works if you miss.

[AdrianB1]

The first study is interesting, but not relevant: 83 cases have a huge variance. The second one is even more interesting, showing that in the majority of the cases the firearms were not used for various reasons or improperly used. This is a bit surprising because carrying a firearm in the bear country and not using it properly suggests a serious lack of proficiency that I cannot explain.

The second study is lacking in determining any important factors of the firearm, just splitting into handguns and long guns is not telling anything about efficiency. In 25% of the cases the user was not able to use the gun (it was empty, safety on or too close) which is highly dependent of the magazine capacity, loading and safety mechanism (ex: bolt action), readiness (empty chamber of full chamber), carrying style (on the shoulder, in a closed holster, open holster). For the other cases caliber, one of the most important parameters in stopping power, is missing.

So the studies are an interesting reading, but not proof of comparative efficiency.