Originally Posted By: Basecamp
I'm not a scientist or a bear expert, but I find flaws in both your reasoning and the statement in the article.
The study was of 269 incidents where the human was armed with a firearm. Out of 269 incidents, they tallied 151 human injuries and 172 bear fatalities.

From that, he and you draw the conclusion that firearms made no difference in the outcome.

A scientific study would have included (at least) groups of armed and unarmed encounters. But then, attempting to study the "unarmed encounters" may leave you frustrated at the difficulty in locating witnesses. There are the occasional findings of finger bones in bear scat that could bear (npi) witness, I suppose.


Here's a paragraph that addresses your concern:

Quote:
The researchers found no statistical difference in the outcome (no injury, injury or fatality) when they compared those who used their gun in an aggressive encounter (229 instances) to those who had firearms but did not use them (40 instances).


From: http://news.byu.edu/archive12-mar-bearsandguns.aspx

Keep in mind that these are news articles, not research reports where Smith presents his findings in a detailed, comprehensive manner suitable for scientific scrutiny. If you are interested, check out the next issue of the Journal of Wildlife Management.

This forum is not the place for debating gun rights and such. I'd suggest a bit of care and attention to what the researcher is trying to accomplish, giving him the benefit of doubt, before accusing him of having "hidden agendas."

Are for other posters clamoring about always carrying in bear country: it may be so that people carry firearms, but it does not alter the statistics. Just because I think having my little blanky with me prevents a meteor from falling on my head, and no meteor has yet fallen on my head, it doesn't mean the blanky is a good meteor repellant. If you have hard numbers to show that firearms give you a higher survival rate in bear encounters, please do share. Otherwise you need to respect the people who actually put in the work.


Edited by Bingley (03/09/12 05:45 PM)