We carried bear spray while hiking in Alaska a few years ago. When we went to Yellowstone last year, a ranger at the visitor center showed us how to actually use the spray canister. We realized then that we would have been bear dung in Alaska had a bear decided to eat us because we really didn’t know how to operate the canisters correctly. Confession of one of the dumbest things I’ve done in the outdoors.
We had seen signs of bear scat on the trails in Alaska.
It seemed that Yellowstone is MUCH more serious about bear safety than Alaska. Probably because of the amount of concentrated influx of tourists.
A major advantage of handguns over bear spray is the 150 years of intense development of handguns and handgun holsters to make their use intuitive, with fast access, presentation delivery of accurate fire at short range.