A decade or so ago, there was an outbreak of rabies in wild animals and some domestic critters- I helped take care of a kid savaged by an allegedly rabid beaver (those bucky-beaver teeth are even more effective on flesh than on trees) and a farmer exposed to a proven-rabid cow (not a cow-bite victim-something bit the cow, and the cow slobbered virus-laden saliva on the farmer, who had some broken skin on this beslobbered hands). That got me thinking about the possibility of rabid bears. The weapons that provide reliable one-shot kills on charging bears tend to have wheels attached, amking them poor choices for carry weapons. A wise old woodsman told me not to worry: rabies is generally transmitted by bites, and not many things get to bite a bear.