Are Outdoorsmen CRAZY ????

I would also have to add empathy, mostly because humans are social animals.

Consequently we aren't hard wired to be honey badgers.

Rap

Human beings are more like wolves...

Human beings are more like wolves, which are pack predators. Pack mentality encourages empathy at least for other members of the pack.

bears are not stupid.

They are stealthy opportunistic and mean fuckers. There are more attacks by black bears than grizzlies, and these are usualy decidedly in favor
of the bears. Two girls were hiking the Appalachian Trail in Va in the late 90's, one girl was armed with a 45

and one BLACK bear stalked and killed them both. The armed girl never got off a shot
(she was supposed to have been a crack shot but probably never faced down a bear before).

YOU ARE IN THE BEAR's COURT. The bear has got all the survival skills and when they attack, the bears biggest concern (just antheopomorphizing here)
is not to get hurt or get a serious wound to affect its hunting skills Grizzlies are more in open ground and , as such, your best defense is NOT to go hiking in forests where grizzlies are in range. Your best protection is not a gun but sight and keeping the bear in sight and showing youre not a threat or arent a puchover either.

I agree that a grizzly, once determoned to get you, will get you, gun or no gun.
The best I think a gun will do is to allow you to "take him with you" cause the bear can crush your entire skull with one chomp.

Te guys whove survived bear attacks and were armed, were giys whod had previous expwerience with hunting or driving bears.
They werent rookies, and they often were still badly mauled.

Relative to WHAT???

A .45 WHAT??

HOW do u tell the bear about the "pushover" part??

Relative to WHAT???

ANY human unfamiliar with how bears will stalk and attack is at the bears mercy.
The bear will do that for days and days and when your guard is down. BAM!! you are lunch.

A .45 WHAT??

Handgun, a handgun David!!!.

It was holstered when they found the girls remains.
Both were partially eaten and were obviously victims of the stalking bear.

So did the bear know that one girl was armed and by knowing, attack that girl first? who knows.

You can look it up on google re: Bear ATtacks on AT. We had a spirited discussion with JTT last year.
He was of the opinion that bears arent a threat. I wonder whether he went AT hiking?

Many people, trained to swhoot paper targets at an indoor range, are noqwhere equipped to even be out in that environment especially if it were known that there was an oldwer bear (most likely the ones who become p[eople killers---qwe are so easy to kill and have nice chewy cenyers)

Hikers who carry fragrant food on a trip through the AT, are asking for trouble. Especially candies.
The big joke had always been how bears will tear you up just looking for a Snickers.
Foods should be dehydrated style or canned and should be buried
and the remnants washed carefully from plates or utensils.
Many hikers carry a bottle of pine oil to use as a scent masker
and a bears chasing scent.

I had several bear expoeriences in my life but if Im in deep woods Im always armed

and I would kill a bear if it gave the signal that I was being stalked.
If a bear is encounytered and its got no evil intent,
it will scatter to the winds and will run from you.
If you are of greater intereswt say , lunch, it will keep a distance
but usually poarallel of follwo you. This happened to me in MAine.
Up there, the bears are all pretty much overhunted and arent too big.
One bear, about 250-300 lb was doing the pqarallel walk and
when Id look in his direction he would stop. SO, I foired a shot

into a mass of forest duff to his side and this was enough to let him know that I wasnt to be fucked with.

When I was hiking the AT many years ago in NC , a friend and I had a "BIG" bear encounter in the Mt Mitchell area.
This bear was running parallel to us and stopping every so ofetn to size us up.
He would disappear into the brush for a short time and then reappear closer. I fired two shots from what I had then,
it was Browning Hi Power

and was a POS cause it jammed on me.
I got it unjkammed and fired a second round in the fround in
fromt and to the side of him (We estimated he was about 500 lb-
that would have been a disaster for us). He waddled off like he
was unintimidated. MAny bears in the Blue rRidge and along the
AT are big suckers (PA has the record in soize for a blackie and it
was just last year and it was over 900 pounds). SO the "evolution theory"
that all the mean bears had all been exterminated by the sttlers is bull.
Its all about the encounter, if a bear feels that he can take you, he will.
If a bear sow has cubs and you are in a "Safety range" whe will
blindly attack jsut for the hell of it.
If you didnt know about bears and had a gun and a false sense of power because youre armed,
forget it, you may mortally wound the bear as your last conscious act, but itd be like the battle of Apulum and youd be Pyrrhus.

HOW do u tell the bear about the "pushover" part??

Appear a sbig as possible. SOme guys would cary another on their back and theyd wave thweir arms.
Trying to keep a safe distance is relative. A bear can run like a Porsche in first. O-35 in two seconds

(I like the .45 Thompson Sub and the B.A.R.) for purely defensive purposes.

...

If you're really concerned there's a 45-70 ...

Perceived risk; however, usually is driven by emotion which usually has little to do with reality.