It wasn't that long ago that people were ridiculed for carrying spray. Firearms proponents were convinced that spray couldn't possibly work. And certain gun proponents implied that spray certainly wasn't very 'manly'. But slowly, year after year, more and more evidence accumulated that spray works, and works rather well. Then the argument was that while maybe spray would discourage an agressive bear, but it couldn't possibley stop a full-on charge. But, again, plenty of incidents demonstrated that spray would indeed stop a charge. Spray has even been successful when the bear had someone down and was chewing on them.