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Handguns have been shown to be effective tools when used to defend against bears. Seven years ago, whether handguns were effective when used to defend against bears was in dispute. In October 2016, someone on the Internet claimed pistols were ineffective as a bear defense. He claimed there were “legions” of incidents where they failed. He failed to provide a single documented case where a handgun, when fired in defense against a bear, failed to stop the attack. A group of people I worked with and I started to look for instances where pistols were fired in defense against a...

In the previous article, Allen Schallenberger, who did bear research in Montana for many years, recounted an incident where he fired his .357 Colt Python in defense against a large aggressive grizzly that refused to leave the area of his camp in 1976. In two other incidents, he fired his .357 in defense against bears. Allen recounts them in his own words below:In spring 1977, I was flying with a small plane pilot out of the Choteau airport to check on the location of radio collared grizzly bears. My spring helper Roy Jacobs and I had a few snares set...

Firearm purchase is at the center of a Justice Department investigation into the troubled first son In the 48 hours before Hunter Biden's handgun purchase that is now under investigation by federal prosecutors, President Joe Biden's troubled son was being hounded about hundreds of thousands of dollars he owed in debts, juggling texts from his brother's widow and her sister, who were also his lovers, and coordinating what appears to be a drug deal at a local 7-Eleven with a man saved in his phone only as "Q." Justice Department prosecutors are reportedly investigating the younger Biden for several potential...

On March 29, 2023, the North Carolina legislature overrode Governor (D) Roy Cooper’s veto, eliminating the unconstitutional state requirement to obtain a permit to purchase a pistol. The permit system was put into operation in 1919, with a resurgence of the Ku Klux Klan and racism, during the Woodrow Wilson presidency. It was in place for 103 years. It is a classic example of a statute that effectively chills the exercise of a Constitutionally protected right. To see how effective the statute was in chilling rights protected by the Second Amendment, consider handgun sales, as measured by the NICS system,...

One warm afternoon in May, Dwight Jackson was getting dressed for a visit to his favorite cigar lounge. He slipped his holstered SIG Sauer P320 pistol onto his belt, put on a button-down shirt and leaned across his bed for his wallet. Suddenly, he said, the gun fired, sending a bullet tearing through his right buttock and into his left ankle. "I heard 'bang!'" said Jackson, 47, a locomotive engineer who lives in Locust Grove, Ga. "I looked down and saw blood." His wife heard the shot from down the hall and screamed. She called an ambulance while Jackson hobbled...

A San Diego federal judge has issued a ruling that blocks four provisions of California’s strict handgun law, becoming the second U.S. district judge within two weeks to rule that parts of the state’s Unsafe Handgun Act likely violate the Second Amendment. Judge Dana Sabraw’s ruling in the San Diego case could potentially open the door for Californians to purchase hundreds of types of semiautomatic pistols that state officials currently deem “unsafe” and thus do not include on a roster of approved handguns. But the judge issued a stay on his decision, giving Attorney General Rob Bonta time to appeal...

A bit after noon on February 27 at Vestpynten in the Svalbard Archipelago (administered by Norway), far north of the arctic circle, a polar bear was shot during a conflict with people and dogs. Vestpynten is a small village in the Archipelago roughly 90 miles North and a bit West of Longyerbyen.The incident report was uncovered with a Freedom of information Act (FOIA) request by AmmoLand. Individual names have been redacted. The report was translated into English, so it has been edited for readability, and fictitious names have been substituted. From the FOIA account, incident 162:The bear was observed around...

As the research into how effective pistols are when used as a defense against bears has progressed, a startling progression has been observed. The recorded use of pistols in defense against bears has grown by two orders of magnitude in recent decades.As pistols came into common use, they were almost certainly used in defense against animal attacks. Portable, reasonably reliable pistols, which could be used as a defensive weapon against an unexpected attack, were unavailable until about 1534 when wheellock pistols became available. They were relatively expensive. Arms of the period were commonly privately owned. Some were likely used in...

Former House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) pushed an “assault weapons” ban in the wake of Wednesday’s handgun attack at Denver East High School. She was speaking at a gun control rally on Thursday when she called for the ban. Pelosi tweeted: NPR reported that the 17-year-old East High School attacker used a handgun. This means an “assault weapons” ban would not, in any way, have prevented the attack from occurring.

California Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) railed against “weapons of war” after the suspected Half Moon Bay shooter used a handgun to kill seven people. Breitbart News reported the suspected shooter killed seven people in separate shootings on two mushroom farms early Monday afternoon. CBS News noted that the suspected shooter “drove himself to the substation located between the two businesses and surrendered to deputies.” They pointed out that the weapon used was “a [semiautomatic] handgun.”

Judicial Watch announced today that the United States Secret Service has repeatedly changed its position about whether it is in possession of records related to the investigation of Hunter Biden’s gun, reportedly disposed of in a dumpster in Delaware. The Secret Service now says it now located over 100 records, totaling over 400 pages and will complete its initial processing of the records by January 9, 2023. Judicial Watch is investigating whether and how the Secret Service intervened for Hunter Biden in an incident involving a gun allegedly owned by him. In September, Judicial Watch filed a Freedom of Information...

As more details are being released about how the Club Q shooting suspect was subdued, numerous outlets have indicated that a patron took away the suspect’s handgun and then “hit him with it.” CNN reported that Colorado Springs Mayor John Suthers (R) indicated “one of the customers took a handgun from the gunman and hit him with it.”

Image of Old Groaner's skull from the front. The bear's left eye arch is intact. Thanks to Hayley Chambers of the Ketchikan Museums for pictures of Old Groaner's skull.In the first three segments of this series, the formation of the myth of Old Groaner was discussed.In segment I, the original article, published in February of 1936, almost certainly written less than two months after Old Groaner was killed, is detailed. Old Groaner was killed in November of 1935. It takes time to put a paper magazine together and to print it, especially in 1936.In segment II, the 1953 re-write and...

Sgt. Rick Alexander of Haltom City police said during a briefing that the three officers did not suffer any life-threatening injuries, as one officer was hit in the right arm, finger and leg, a second male officer hit in both legs and a third officer hit in upper thigh. An elderly female had called 911 and police arrived at the residence where officers returned fire during the incident, Alexander said. The elderly female sustained non-life threatening injuries. A woman was found dead in the home and a man was found dead outside, Alexander said. The suspected gunman was described as...

A Texas gun owner defended himself and another woman from a teenager who allegedly tried to rob them at gunpoint in Austin, Texas last week, police announced. Jaylyn Reed, 17, has now been charged with aggravated robbery with a deadly weapon. Reed was already convicted of a series of robberies in 2021. Police say he was released from juvenile detention on May 27 with an ankle monitor, which he cut it off two days later. Reed then committed a series of nine robberies in five days, police say. Reed reportedly approached the man and woman shortly after exiting a vehicle,...

On Thursday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “All In,” Sen. Tammy Duckworth (D-IL) pushed for restoring the ban on assault weapons and banning high-capacity magazines by claiming that if the school shooter in Uvalde, TX “didn’t have two AR-15s, but had a single handgun because he couldn’t get his hands on two assault weapons at the age of 18,” “then we wouldn’t have the high death rates” in the shooting that we do.

As I collected documented incidents of handguns fired in defense against bears, a pattern emerged. The recorded incidents of pistols being fired in defense against bears overwhelmingly occurred from 1960 onward. I’ve found 125 documented cases where handguns have been fired in defense against bears, from 1890 to present. Two of the 125 cases were considered to be indeterminate as to success or failure. An additional 20 cases, where handguns were used with other lethal means, are considered combination defenses. They are not included in this analysis.The total numbers include indeterminate cases, but not the combination cases. 95% of all...

In 2016, this correspondent and others started searching for incidents in which a handgun was fired to defend against a bear or bears, and failed to stop the attack by driving off or killing the bear. Access to a defensive tool, such as a shotgun, rifle, bear spray, handgun, hatchet, or knife all presents similar problems. Therefore we only considered cases where a handgun was actually fired. If we were looking at the effectiveness of bear spray, we would only look at cases where the bear spray was actually sprayed.To prevent selection bias, all cases where a handgun was fired...

The 15-year-old who allegedly attacked Michigan’s Oxford High on Tuesday used a handgun his father purchased on Black Friday 2021. Breitbart News reported three students were killed in the Oxford High attack and numerous other people were injured. USA Today noted that Oakland County Sheriff Mike Bouchard announced the 15-year-old used a pistol his father bought days earlier. He indicated the 15-year-old allegedly had two 15-round magazines and fired “at least 12 rounds” during his attack. Bouchard pointed out the 15-year-old had used the handgun for target shooting after his father purchased it, but stressed that there had been no...

A federal appeals court ruled Thursday that federal laws banning firearms dealers from selling handguns to customers under the age of 21 were unconstitutional. The United States Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit said in the decision that there was no reason to treat the Second Amendment any differently from other constitutional rights citizens enjoy no later than the age of 18. The court ruled that 18-year-olds possess Second Amendment rights, and the federal government failed “to justify its infringement of those rights under the appropriate level of scrutiny.”