I am at this point considered liberal, but I hace to say that I do like guns. Range shooting is super fun. If I could I would take up competitive Three Gun as a hobby, but I don’t have a course in my area.

Also, I hike with either my 45-70 ammunition rifle or my .45acp pistol with high grain ammo. Why? I live in Wyoming where we are definitely not on the top of the food chain. Even my pistol is liable to just piss off a bear if it really means business.

Yeah, I would definitely carry a .44 magnum in grizzly country.

Man, if you think target shooting is fun, wait until you go skeet or trap shooting! That’s the most fun shooting there is IMO. Give it a try if you haven’t already. I just bought a really nice Franchi over-under 20 gauge specifically for trap and skeet. It would make a great upland game bird gun too, but I don’t really have any interest in that.

Bear spray is usually a better choice, on account of a whole lot of factors. At the very least you should bring both and issue a warning with bear spray.

I carry bear spray in black bear country. Thankfully I don’t live anywhere near grizzly bears (although they’re talking about reintroducing them here). I thought I remembered reading somewhere that bear spray isn’t very effective against grizzlies.

sn’t very effective against grizzlies

To be fair, neither is a single round fired center of mass unless it’s like a 12.7×99 mm.