US Air Force survival gun?

In article , Bob McKellar
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article ,
(SteveM8597) wrote:

I have carried a firearm a time or two while backpacking in grizzly
country but
not in state and national parks where they are illegal. I hear the
situation
in some of the CA parks is pretty bad, though. Not what I would
consider a
survival situation, just common sense.

Best bet for bear and cougar defense is actually pepper spray, although I've
also carried a .357, especially when hiking with kids.


So, pepper spray doesn't work well on kids?

Bob McKellar

LOL.
But seriously, pepper spray has limited range and is OK for your own
personal protection. But if a cat threatens or grabs a kid you need to be able
to reach out and touch the cat.
I wouldn't try a handgun on a bear though. Too dicey.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article , Bob McKellar
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article ,
(SteveM8597) wrote:

I have carried a firearm a time or two while backpacking in grizzly
country but
not in state and national parks where they are illegal. I hear the
situation
in some of the CA parks is pretty bad, though. Not what I would
consider a
survival situation, just common sense.

Best bet for bear and cougar defense is actually pepper spray, although I've
also carried a .357, especially when hiking with kids.


So, pepper spray doesn't work well on kids?

Bob McKellar

LOL.
But seriously, pepper spray has limited range and is OK for your own
personal protection. But if a cat threatens or grabs a kid you need to be able
to reach out and touch the cat.
I wouldn't try a handgun on a bear though. Too dicey.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

I took a Navy correspondence course on "Arctic Operations". The advice for shooting
a polar bear was to aim for the shoulder, since their skulls are too thick to be
easily penetrated.

It sorta reminded me of some of our regular posters around here.

Bob McKellar

"Bob McKellar" wrote in message
...


Harry Andreas wrote:

In article , Bob McKellar
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article ,
(SteveM8597) wrote:

I have carried a firearm a time or two while backpacking in
grizzly
country but
not in state and national parks where they are illegal. I hear
the
situation
in some of the CA parks is pretty bad, though. Not what I would
consider a
survival situation, just common sense.

Best bet for bear and cougar defense is actually pepper spray,
although I've
also carried a .357, especially when hiking with kids.


So, pepper spray doesn't work well on kids?

Bob McKellar

LOL.
But seriously, pepper spray has limited range and is OK for your own
personal protection. But if a cat threatens or grabs a kid you need to
be able
to reach out and touch the cat.
I wouldn't try a handgun on a bear though. Too dicey.

--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

I took a Navy correspondence course on "Arctic Operations". The advice
for shooting
a polar bear was to aim for the shoulder, since their skulls are too thick
to be
easily penetrated.

It sorta reminded me of some of our regular posters around here.

Aiming for the shoulder with a handgun is more likely to just **** him off,
and if he is close it is probably a wasted effort--a bear has a pretty slow
cardio-pulmonary rate, so a shoulder-into-chest cavity shot (which requires
a lot of penetration capability against a big bear) is likely to leave you
still facing him up-close-and-personal, even if he is destined to die to few
minutes later. A lot of critters have thick skulls--hogs among them, and my
daddy used a .22 *short* to dispatch a few of them on the farm. I'd prefer
to just avoid the critter, but if forced to, I think I'd have to go for the
head shot if he is getting close enough to me to really have to change the
britches. If you don't kill him, you can still KO his butt--dear ol' Dad
once dropped a doe with a headshot using a .30-30 (with a 170 grain load, to
boot) from no more than about seventy yards. Went down flatter than a
pancake without twitching a muscle. It laid there a few seconds, then as he
was getting ready to walk down to it it jumped back up, shook her head a
couple of times, and bounded off like she was good as new, though a bit
wobbly. Figured the round glanced off her skull.

Brooks


Bob McKellar

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:38:41 -0400, Bob McKellar
wrote:


I took a Navy correspondence course on "Arctic Operations". The advice for shooting
a polar bear was to aim for the shoulder, since their skulls are too thick to be
easily penetrated.

BOAC and the successor portion of BA used to carry a long gun* in the
survival pack, until about ten years ago. This was for shooting polar
bears after ditching in the Far North. Flight attendants were taught
never to let anyone eat the liver, as it has so much vitamin A it's
toxic to humans.

*I can't remember if it was a rifle or a carbine.

It sorta reminded me of some of our regular posters around here.

"Some"? Only "some"? Surely you jest.

On another note, I'm getting tired of the vitriolic political
disputatiousness on Usenet already and it's a long time to November.
Particularly the nasty attack stuff. It's unoriginal, it's tedious,
and it's irritating. It also says more about the attacker than the
attacked. Whatever happened to the concept of reasonable people
avoiding unreasonable topics in inappropriate places? Has anyone ever
changed their mind because of such an attack (well, except about the
manners and morals of the attacker)?

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

In article ,
Mary Shafer wrote:

On another note, I'm getting tired of the vitriolic political
disputatiousness on Usenet already and it's a long time to November.
Particularly the nasty attack stuff. It's unoriginal, it's tedious,
and it's irritating. It also says more about the attacker than the
attacked. Whatever happened to the concept of reasonable people
avoiding unreasonable topics in inappropriate places? Has anyone ever
changed their mind because of such an attack (well, except about the
manners and morals of the attacker)?

I'm just about this close to shutting off the computer until after
November. Make do with books, gardening, and weaving.

And then my kids send a flurry of email...almost makes up for the other
stuff.

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:08:59 -0700, Mary Shafer wrote:

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:38:41 -0400, Bob McKellar
wrote:


I took a Navy correspondence course on "Arctic Operations". The advice for shooting
a polar bear was to aim for the shoulder, since their skulls are too thick to be
easily penetrated.

BOAC and the successor portion of BA used to carry a long gun* in the
survival pack, until about ten years ago. This was for shooting polar
bears after ditching in the Far North. Flight attendants were taught
never to let anyone eat the liver, as it has so much vitamin A it's
toxic to humans.

*I can't remember if it was a rifle or a carbine.

It sorta reminded me of some of our regular posters around here.

"Some"? Only "some"? Surely you jest.

On another note, I'm getting tired of the vitriolic political
disputatiousness on Usenet already and it's a long time to November.
Particularly the nasty attack stuff. It's unoriginal, it's tedious,
and it's irritating. It also says more about the attacker than the
attacked. Whatever happened to the concept of reasonable people
avoiding unreasonable topics in inappropriate places? Has anyone ever
changed their mind because of such an attack (well, except about the
manners and morals of the attacker)?

Mary

I agree completely, and I will no longer participate in any thread that gets
into the political area.

Sorry about the recent past, I just got a little carried away!!

Al Minyard

On Thu, 22 Apr 2004 10:23:20 -0500, Alan Minyard
wrote:

On Wed, 21 Apr 2004 19:08:59 -0700, Mary Shafer wrote:

On another note, I'm getting tired of the vitriolic political
disputatiousness on Usenet already and it's a long time to November.
Particularly the nasty attack stuff. It's unoriginal, it's tedious,
and it's irritating. It also says more about the attacker than the
attacked. Whatever happened to the concept of reasonable people
avoiding unreasonable topics in inappropriate places? Has anyone ever
changed their mind because of such an attack (well, except about the
manners and morals of the attacker)?

I agree completely, and I will no longer participate in any thread that gets
into the political area.

Sorry about the recent past, I just got a little carried away!!

I think a big part of the problem is we all have opinions about these
topics. It's easy to fight fire with fire (or something--you know
what I mean) and slip into the same style that others are using. It's
contagious, I guess I'm trying to say.

Even when I sort of agree with some of the opinions, the style makes
me cranky and irritable. That's why I try not to post on these
topics. I'm not good at flaming people; I'm better at writing them
off as uninformed barbarians with limited vocabularies and stupid
ideas, justifying my ignoring them henceforth.

Mary

--
Mary Shafer Retired aerospace research engineer

"Harry Andreas" wrote in message
...
In article , Bob McKellar
wrote:

Harry Andreas wrote:

In article ,
(SteveM8597) wrote:

I have carried a firearm a time or two while backpacking in grizzly
country but
not in state and national parks where they are illegal. I hear the
situation
in some of the CA parks is pretty bad, though. Not what I would
consider a
survival situation, just common sense.

Best bet for bear and cougar defense is actually pepper spray,
although I've
also carried a .357, especially when hiking with kids.


So, pepper spray doesn't work well on kids?

Bob McKellar

LOL.
But seriously, pepper spray has limited range and is OK for your own
personal protection. But if a cat threatens or grabs a kid you need to be
able
to reach out and touch the cat.
I wouldn't try a handgun on a bear though. Too dicey.

The ol' Black Bear actually accounts for many more attacks against humans in
the US than does the Grizzly, which makes sense being as they are more
widely distributed and have a larger population. I carried a 12 guage pump
with a slug barrel when I went fishing by myself in Alaska (on the Kenai and
close-by streams)--and of course the only bear I saw was the stuffed one
standing in the airport building at Fairbanks when I flew in. Pepper spray
is bettter than nothing, but I remember camping in the park in the Smoky's a
few years back and a ranger stopping by our campsite to warn us of a rogue
black bear that they were trying to catch (they had one of those neat
galvanized pipe traps near the hike-in only campsite) in the area. He said
that it had ransacked the campsite a few days earlier and one of the campers
hit it with pepper spray in the face without seriously discouraging it, so
the guaranteed-quality of capsiacin aginst a Grizzly is somewhat suspect. A
good handgun, where it is allowed, would be my preference over the spray,
and the caliber is sort of dependent upon the shooter's ability--the favored
round for poachers going after black bears is still the .22 (albeit in rifle
form), last I heard, and I know of one case where a camper killed a black
that had attacked him with a .22 pistol. Though I'd rather have a .40 S&W or
better in Grizzly country if I had to leave the shotgun behind (saying
something about my confidence, or lack thereof, in my own short-iron
shooting ability).

Brooks


--
Harry Andreas
Engineering raconteur

Kevin Brooks wrote:

The ol' Black Bear actually accounts for many more attacks against humans in
the US than does the Grizzly, which makes sense being as they are more
widely distributed and have a larger population. I carried a 12 guage pump

Are you certain of that? I've read quite consistently that
the black bear is really very slow to attack a human, even
when it has cubs. Attacks are extremely rare.

I think the last I heard, a couple years ago a woman jogging
around somewhere in Quebec was killed by a black bear. It
was an exceptional event!

I guess I should find out more. We've got *plenty* of black
bears around here, and they're definitely done with their
winter naps.

Had my first encounter with one for this year just a few days
ago. It growled at my dog, made a short charge towards the
dog, and then took off. This would be my 5th encounter with
local black bears in about 3 years, and usually, they just
skeedadle as fast as possible when they see me. The critters
are *everywhere* around here now days!


SMH

"Stephen Harding" wrote in message
...
Kevin Brooks wrote:

The ol' Black Bear actually accounts for many more attacks against
humans in
the US than does the Grizzly, which makes sense being as they are more
widely distributed and have a larger population. I carried a 12 guage
pump

Are you certain of that? I've read quite consistently that
the black bear is really very slow to attack a human, even
when it has cubs. Attacks are extremely rare.

Huh? *Fatalities* due to black bear attacks are somewhat rare, but the
attacks sure are not. Note:

"In late May, a black bear preyed upon hiker Glenda Ann Bradley about 10
miles outside Gatlinburg, Tenn. It was the first recorded black bear
fatality in the history of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. Then,
early in July, Canadian biathlete Mary Beth Miller was killed by a black
bear outside Quebec City. After that, human-bear conflicts made news all
summer: Black bears clawed or bit four Boy Scouts in July at the Philmont
Scout
Ranch in northeastern New Mexico..."Conflict is increasing all over," said
Gary Shelton, who has studied
bears for 35 years and written two books considered to be the seminal works
on bear aggression. "What's happening is bear attacks are taking place where
they haven't before, there's a higher level of fatalities, and there are
more deadly attacks by black bears...." Shelton, meanwhile, is preparing a
paper for the International Bear
Association conference next May that details his theory: Black bears, in
certain circumstances, will indeed prey on humans. "There's going to be a
slow, steady increase of predatory black bear attacks that will catch bear
managers off guard," he said." ( www.bears.org/pipermail/bearfolks/
2000-October/000447.html )

I can see where you might have the idea that the black bear is a rather
docile and non-threatening species; I thought pretty much the same when my
dad passed on the bit about more black bear attacks than Grizzly attacks,
something he had seen on a TV documentary. A Google will disabuse you of
that belief--there have been black bear attack fatalities here in the US (I
ran across mention of a documented case in Colorado, where the bear took a
timberman out of his cabin, killed him, and fed on him, and another in New
Mexico, where an elderly woman was similarly attacked and killed in her
cabin, so there are two documented fatalities right there to add to the
above mentioned Gatlinburg case, and the Quebec incident you mention below).
Checking into this, I also found that there appears to be a growing body of
experts who say that the previously taught action for handling a Grizzly
attack (curl into a ball and play dead) may be bad-wrong; the
punch-in-the-nose might be a better defense. Similarly, I noted that one
fellow indicated that properly used pepper spray is effective about 75% of
the time--leaving you wondering what the hell you do if you are in that
unlucky 25% where it does not work.


I think the last I heard, a couple years ago a woman jogging
around somewhere in Quebec was killed by a black bear. It
was an exceptional event!

Not exceptional as far as being an attack, nor is it truly exceptional as
being a fatality due to black bear attack. From perusing the chatter from
apparently knowledgable folks regarding this matter, it appears that in
British Columbia black bear attacks and fatalities have actually outnumbered
Grizzly incidents.


I guess I should find out more. We've got *plenty* of black
bears around here, and they're definitely done with their
winter naps.

Had my first encounter with one for this year just a few days
ago. It growled at my dog, made a short charge towards the
dog, and then took off. This would be my 5th encounter with
local black bears in about 3 years, and usually, they just
skeedadle as fast as possible when they see me. The critters
are *everywhere* around here now days!

There have been a lot of documented attacks against domestic animals. The
bears have apparently begun increasing their population in our area (between
D.C. and Richmond), but I have yet to see one around here myself. My parents
live up in the Shenandoah Valley, and I have encountered both sign and the
actual critters themselves up that way; walking up the trail beside a creek
I was going to fish, I once kicked one out of the brush and watched him
scurry away--it was so comical I had to laugh outloud. He was running as
hard as he could while repeatedly looking back at me with this obviously
terrified look about him, trying to see if I was going to chase him. Danged
thing took off up the side of the ridge (a pretty steep one) and I swear he
was accelerating the whole time. Made me realize if I ever did encounter one
who was testy that outrunning him is *not* an option.

Brooks



SMH