Update of Pistol Defenses Against Bears 123 Cases, 98% Effective

AmmoLand ^ | April 11, 2022 | Dean Weingarten

[marktwain]

I have been researching the effectiveness of pistols when they are fired as a defense against bears for several years.  The research started as an attempt to find cases where pistols were ineffective.  

In October of 2016, a poster on freerepublic.com claimed (post 28 at the link) that there were numerous failures when people attempted to use pistols as a defensive tool against bears. The author knew there were several cases where the use of a pistol resulted in an effective defense. 

Because access to handguns, bear spray, knives, rifles, and shotguns all involve similar problems, only cases where a handgun was actually fired are considered. None of these systems do any good if they cannot be accessed in time to be used to stop an attack.

Months, then years of searching the Internet, books, and official sources for documented cases of failure found three documented failures and over a hundred documented cases of success (there were 10 cases where combinations of pistols and other potentially lethal items were used).

In June of 2021, the count of documented cases where pistols or handguns alone were fired in defense against bears stood at 104. One of those was discovered to be a duplicate and corrected. Since then, another 20 cases have been found. Those cases raise the number to 123. Of the 123 cases, three documented cases exist where the firing of the handgun did not stop the attack by driving off or killing the bear or bears involved.

When the number of cases reached 100, publishing the whole on the Internet at AmmoLand became time-consuming and unwieldy.  With this update, additional cases will be published as time permits. The statistics will be updated. The last update will be available, but not incorporated into a

[riverrunner]

I live in prime black bear country.

In non hunting situations I have had many close encounters with black bears.

Never had too shoot one but had to back a couple down.

I have travel back packed camped in grizzly country for the last 40 years . Seen a few didn’t have any trouble.

In hunting situations In shot black bears with rifles, shotguns and a couple calibers of handguns.

Proper calibers bullets and velocities well kill them just fine.