scout wrote:Secondly, I intend to carry this while camping/hiking... I do a lot of hiking/camping deep in the bush and I often think of what if I ran across a bad guy or worse if someone tried to attack me or my family at night while camping... (I have had this happen before) also, not that this would *ever* happen but if a bear (I'm often up in the BWCA) or another large animal got a little too curious/aggressive... I feel more comforted knowing I could throw some hot rocks instead of just banging pots and pans (of course, it'd be a last resort).
Yelling and banging pots usually does the job, as does traveling with others. My brother has, at various points, chased off 800 pounds of brown bear by holding a bike over his head and yelling rugby chants. Another time my brother and my uncle defeated a bear by doing jumping jacks and yelling until it decided they were too weird to eat and wandered off. Personally, I've never felt the need to carry a gun for dealing with bears. Follow good bear safety procedure and you shouldn't have any trouble.
Just poking through the wiki article on fatal bear attacks, and most of the incidents listed are cases where the victim wasn't practicing basic bear safety. Traveling in back country alone, keeping bears as pets, feeding bears. And I have to ask, has anyone ever actually shot at a bear with a 9mm? It's not going to drop it right off, but in my experience bears are lazy, skittish, and dislike loud noises and strange doings. I can't help wonder if taking a few bullets of any caliber would be enough to encourage a bear to go find someone else to bother.
Moose, though, moose are freaking psychotic. Probably want to pack a bren gun or something for them.
PSYCHOTIC MOOSE 
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