Here’s a joke told to me by Alaskans on the subject of handguns and grizzlies:
“If you’re going to carry a pistol in bear country, make sure to file down the front sight.”
The typical question from a person of the lower 48 is then: “Why? So you can draw it faster, or it doesn’t snag on your clothes in winter?”
Alaskan: “No, so it doesn’t hurt so bad when the bear shoves it up your ass.”
Any pistol is scant protection against a really PO’ed griz or brown bear. Alaskans prefer to pack 12ga slug guns with Brenneke slugs. Most people can’t control those hand cannons well enough to gain proficiency with them.
Here in Wyoming, I pack a .45 LC when in the woods, but then we have few griz. More of my hazard is moose.
“Here’s a joke told to me by Alaskans on the subject of handguns and grizzlies:”
It is actually part of a true story published in Alaska Magazine back in the 80s.
We got the same joke and the same advice when we went to Alaska. I was hiking with a 9mm and would run into people carrying shot guns with slugs. They said the 9 would just piss the bear off. Luckily, I didn’t have to put it to the test.
Speaking of jokes, that reminds me of the reason you CARRY a pistol: to fight your way back to the long gun that you should never have walked away from in the first place.