Unlike a gun, it won't kill the bear- or you.
I first reported the advantages of using pepper spray instead of other more dangerous weaponry against bears more than two years ago. Since BYU here in Utah released the findings of their study showing pepper spray is more effective than guns in warding off bears, we’ve carried it with us on our hikes where we know bears live (in the mountains’ lowers elevations, among trees where they have food, shelter, protection). You can buy it at REI or any other outdoors store.
Jack Hanna, the famous animal dude, has been carrying it for years and finally got the chance to use it successfully the other day in Montana. This should not only serve as additional incentive for people to arm themselves appropriately and safely (sorry, Stephen Colbert), but as more evidence that the NRA’s and other gun fanatics’ efforts to make firearms legal in national parks are the product of paranoia, bad or dis-information, 
and the current administration cowering before the frightening spector of Fox News and right-wing power freaks.
If I was afraid of anything in the wild, it would be these Glock-toting psychos who don’t feel safe in their own living rooms wandering around ready to plug the first thing that rustles in the brush including their five-year-old daughter. As Colbert himself would say: “Bears- not so much.”
