Bear spray manufactures and anti gun and hunting types love bear spray and promote it as better.
Does it work, some times is it better depends.
No system is perfect.
So you never used or fired or handled a hand gun so you have no clue what your talking about when they come to their use.
Except what your read.
The rest of your post has nothing to do with bears or bear attacks.
The point is, handguns are restricted weapons in Canada, restricted, as defined in the Criminal Code of Canada. As such, few Canadians have access to handguns. To say that he would have lived, if he had a handgun, is a fanciful flight of supposition. We can play the ‘supposition game’ all day... You could also say that ‘if’ he had a grenade, he could have killed the bear at a distance, or a bazooka, etc... ALL supposition. The fact is, the percentage of people camping in Canada who would be carrying handguns would be well below .00001%. As for the rest of my previous comment, it goes to the mindset of Americans versus Canadians, our different histories that went into developing such mindsets.
Could the man in BC have survived IF he had a handgun?
Perhaps.
IF the bear’s first bite did not render him unable to fire a gun (remember, he made no noise, so he was either already unconscious or his throat bitten so he could make no noise)
IF he knew how to use a handgun,
IF he had it on his person, rather than merely lying near him on the ground where he had to search for it,
IF he had the presence of mind to use it,
IF the bear had not crushed his skull, (luckily for Mr. Black, it didn’t)
IF he could maneuver into a position to unload the gun into the bear
IF...
IF...
IF...
There are a whole lot of circumstances that have to line up just right, for the dead man to have killed the bear. The easiest and smartest way for him to survive, would have been to simple sleep in the trailer, NOT by the fire where the food was cooked.
Given that under Canadian law, handguns are restricted, you use the best means of protection/prevention that are available, bells for when you are hiking, bear bangers to scare the bear away, and as a last, desperate means of escape, bear spray. If you choose to sleep alone, by the fire, in an isolated locale, you are asking for trouble. Unfortunately, this man found it.