He has decent data, but be careful of Weingarten's interpretations. If you follow his work, you will see he is big into guns and handguns for bear defense, but against pepper spray for defense. However, he applies the criterion of stops differently in several cases.
For example, he will note that in the bear attack on Uptain in Wyoming, bear spray failed, not the pistol that Uptain's client could not make work, but if a person can't make bear spray work, then the bear spray failed. For the record, bear spray worked in the Uptain incident, It was simply deployed too late, but did apparently stop the attack.
Details about the fatal bear spray failure in the Wyoming grizzly attack on Mark Uptain and Corey Chubon. The Glock pistol at the packs did not belong to Chubon, who could not get it to fire.
www.ammoland.com
The ground investigation of a grizzly attack in the Bridger Teton National Park that left one dead has ended. A female grizzly bear and her yearling — a…
www.wyomingpublicmedia.org
Yet somehow the fact that he tried to use the gun and could not make it work was not a failure of a handgun in a bear attack. Amazing.
Glock at the scene of Wyoming grizzly bear attack did not have a round in the chamber. The magazine was found separate from the pistol. Mark Uptain had the pistol in a holster but took it off.
www.ammoland.com
The OP article above does not even mention the Uptain incident.
I have not seen an article by Weingarten on this incident involving Beierman and his son, but I am sure he will not blame the pistol for a failure to stop the attack...
The father and 12-year-old son were hunting in Wisconsin.
www.mlive.com
You have to read individual incidents. By and large he is correct in that guns do a good job, but I would not trust his numbers for how good as he is selective in the presentation of data.
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The problems with these attack data is that we don't always know motivation. As with attacks by humans, many attackers are much more easily repelled by what are effectively psychological stops than physiological stops. This attack was stopped by a punch to the face of a mama grizzly.
https://www.newsweek.com/bear-attack-canada-punched-face-1930807 More than likely bear spray or a gun would have worked as well, right? Maybe not the same kind of attack when you have a really upset bear, like one on shot early in the day and are now trying to find and the bear finds you. In short, not all attacks are the same.
I mentioned the Beierman incident. It is recent. Bear hunt. Wounded bear tracked. Hunter attacked by wounded bear, attempts to use pistol to stop the bear but can't hit the bear (the charge was only 6 feet) and he 12 year old shot the bear off him. Things don't always work out that well.
That turned out much better than this incident where the attempt to shoot the hunted, wounded, tracked, and attacking bear got ahold of his hunter and the hunter's buddy went ahead and killed both of them, not meaning to kill his friend.
https://www.thehighroad.org/index.p...s-bullet-not-bear-attack.616679/#post-7610405
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Yes, a pistol is good. Any is better than none (which I agree with Weingarten on this), but not all bear attacks are alike. You have bears driven off with a punch to the face. You have bears shot many times that press on the attack anyways. A NAA Mini revolver with .22 lr loaded with CCI Mini Mags means you have a 98% chance of winning the battle??
And remember, while this is a bear defense pistol story, it took two shooters shooting this bear 24 times to stop it.
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2024/...times-share-their-stunning-story-of-survival/
Not all bear attacks are the same.
youtu.be
