Bear spray proponents claim bear spray can be deployed faster than handguns, rifles, or shotguns. This is not obvious or certain. The claim is simply made and assumed to be true.
It is not true.
The truth is all four systems can be reasonably fast *if* the users train and practice with the system.
This correspondent believed handguns to be the fastest method. An experienced trainer in Canada showed bear spray could be practically as fast as holstered handguns.
A reasonably fast response is to access and use a defense against bears system in under two seconds. Very fast is to effectively utilize the system in a fraction of a second.
Holstered bear spray and handguns can be about the same speed. Rifles and shotguns, with a chambered cartridge, held at the ready, are faster.
All four systems, when trained and practiced with, held at the ready, are very fast. None of the four systems is fast if the user is not trained, has not practiced, and/or keeps the system in a location or state where it cannot be used quickly.
All four systems can meet both standards with a little training and practice if good carrying/ holstering systems are used. In practice, this is harder to do with long guns, because using both hands is nearly essential. Unless a person is dedicated as a guard, there are often times when at least one hand is occupied with other tasks. The temptation to set a long gun against a tree or wall, or inside a tent, or to sling it over the back is great. Bureaucracies may insist on carrying a long gun without a cartridge in the chamber. Handguns and bear spray overcome this by being compact and light enough to use a holster.
With about a half day’s practice and training, the time to draw and use either system can be reliably reduced to under two seconds.
This correspondent was skeptical about the potential speed of bear spray draw and use. The Internet was searched for actual data. Data became available from Dave Evert. Dave Evert spent 23 years teaching the Bear and Cougar Encounter Courses and 14 years of teaching the Western Canada Wilderness Handgun Course, both of which he developed. Dave taught hundreds of students to quick draw and employ bear spray in under two seconds. From Dave:
But having watched perhaps a few hundred employees doing this, I can say that some were able to pivot, draw, ready to spray in one second; more of them in 1.5 seconds and all of them within 2 seconds. Some were phenomenal.
Dave emphasizes that this requires a proper holster for the bear spray. His students practiced with an inert training spray, a necessity for such practice. Dave insisted his students carry two canisters of bear spray in a specific cross-draw configuration because it gives redundancy and the potential to deter a persistent bear. Dave highly recommends a sharp fixed blade knife be carried opposite the bear spray (4-6 inch thick sharp blade, with a guard and non-slip handle) as a last line of defense.
The holsters for the bear spray are flap-type, which require two hands to draw quickly. One hand to retract the flap, the other to draw the spray. Dave is currently using a Kodiak holster. Dave says it is important for the holster not to be a tight fit, or it will take two hands to extract the bear spray.
Dave also recommends handguns for bear defense. In Canada, bureaucratic burdens make obtaining a carry permit for animal defense in the wild extremely difficult. Few are able to navigate the system and obtain an Authority to Carry (ATC). The law has this provision for people whose work requires them to be in the wild. The law has been interpreted by the bureaucracy in such a way as to make it impractical for most people to comply.
Dave’s experience with bear spray is the same experience that firearms instructors have noted for decades. It takes novices an afternoon of practice and training to draw and hit a target at close range in under 2 seconds. With consistent practice, most can achieve 1.5 seconds. Dedicated practice can bring the time to under a second. The same times can be achieved with long guns using tactical slings, if carried with a cartridge in the chamber.
Practice is required, just as with handguns and with bear spray. In practice, it is important to keep your eyes on the target, not on the weapon in the holster.
Dave Evert had similar experiences with training for handguns. The choices were much reduced in Canada because the bureaucracy insisted on regulating both the choices of handguns and of holsters. Dave, as his individual choice, prefers a chest holster for a handgun.
The Gunsight academy week-long course fits into the “consistent practice” category for handguns. The standard is to draw and shoot two rounds to the chest in 1.5 seconds at 5 yards. Draw and shoot 2 rounds to the chest in 2 seconds at 10 yards. This is achieved by most students in a week long, intense course.
How much time a person has to react is seldom controlled by the actions of the bear or other animal. The limit is almost always situational awareness. Much of situational awareness is the willingness to accept the reality of dangerous situations and the need to act rather than saying to yourself, “this cannot be happening”. Do not ignore warning signs. Training helps people become more aware of their surroundings.
In defense against bears, where there is less danger of hitting other people, if you perceive a dangerous situation, draw your weapon. This will cut a second off of your reaction time. With all four weapons (if long guns are carried with a cartridge in the chamber) this means most people can employ them effectively in less than a second, if you practice just a bit. With consistent practice, this becomes “muscle memory” and the time becomes a fraction of a second. With your weapon in your hands and ready for use, this gives you precious fractions of a second to evaluate and choose the correct response.
Bear spray is much more affected by wind, temperature, and precipitation than firearms. Wind and very cold temperatures limit the effectiveness of bear spray by reducing the range from roughly 30-44 feet to 5-7 feet in most conditions, except when the wind is blowing toward the threat. Such is the result found by Tom Smith in his paper on bear spray limitations. Tom Smith is a noted bear spray proponent and author of the bear spray studies.
Firearms are effective to distances where a bear is not considered an immediate threat (beyond 100 feet), according to Stephen Herrero, in Bear Attacks Their Causes and Avoidance, p. 243:
To give a bear a reasonable chance to stop and to give yourself reasonable safety, the person expert with firearms should perhaps wait until a charging grizzly is from 50 to 100 feet away or even closer.
Stephen Herrero is also a co-author with Tom Smith of the original Efficacy of Bear Deterrent Spray in Alaska paper.
Bear spray does not reach 50 to 100 feet unless the wind is from you to the bear. Tom Smith admitted the original bear spray study, authored by him and Stephen Herrero, showed bear spray is not particularly effective at stopping charging grizzly bears (interview with Wes Siler for Outside). Wes recently expanded on this with another article, “Bear Spray is a Placebo“. Wes was a bear spray enthusiast who changed his mind.
Recent research on the effectiveness of bear spray and firearms, using data collected by Smith and Herrero and Internet searches, has more than doubled the original sample of 72 incidents where bear spray was used. The expanded data set is now 231 incidents where bear spray was present , and 173-186 times when bear spray was used, depending on the way the incidents are scored in the statistical analysis in the paper. This is the most extensive data set collected on bear spray used against bears to date.
Of the 231 times bear spray was present, bears were successfully deterred 67.1% of the time. From page 122 of the paper, based on 155 successful uses:
67.1% of incidents where bear spray was present it was used successfully to deter the bear
When the firearm type was identified, the results were strikingly similar.
P. 13:
When present, rifles successfully deterred bears in 68% (n = 156) of encounters, shotguns 72% (n = 28), and handguns 71% (n = 50) of the time.
When rifles were present bears were successfully deterred 68% of the time, based on 156 successful uses.
When shotguns were present bears were successfully deterred 72% of the time, based on 28 successful uses.
When handguns were present bears were successfully deterred 71% of the time, based on 50 successful uses. Note the small number of incidents where handguns were used.
This shows that the mere presence of a weapon is not enough. It has to be available. The training and practice of the user is of high importance.
The slight difference between weapon types indicates that the problems of access are very similar. It is a problem of training and self-discipline, not weapon type. The numbers above show that the opinion that bear spray is easier to use is not supported by the data. In the latest research, the author makes this clear by inserting a caveat about bear spray. The current paper restates the claim from previous claims, p. 30, bold added:
In contrast to firearms, bear spray, when properly carried (i.e., holstered in an easily accessible location), is more readily deployed and requires less skill and accuracy than all firearm types, thus contributing to their higher overall success rate than that of firearms. (Smith & Herrero 2018, Smith et al. 2007, and Herrero & Higgins 1999).
The data does not support the claim. As shown above, sufficient speed and accuracy can be found with any of the systems, given a few hours of training and practice. Without the training, all systems fail due to human factors, not the limits of the weapons system. Speed of draw and deployment takes about the same amount of training for bear spray, handguns, and long guns if a cartridge is kept chambered in long guns. Extreme speed and accuracy are seldom required for firearms to be successfully deployed in defense against bears. Two seconds is almost always sufficient for the first shot. In the vast majority of the cases examined by this correspondent, the victims had more than two seconds of warning. They often claimed they had no time to react. Their actions demonstrated they had more than two seconds they did not use to draw their weapons or come to a ready state.
They failed because they did not have a weapon, or they failed to deploy the weapon. In a few cases, there were weapon malfunctions. This can happen with all weapon systems. The data shows it happens a little more often with bear spray than with rifles, shotguns, or handguns. The total success percentages are all very close.
The major differences between handguns and bear spray become apparent in two ways. First, when success rates are compared, the systems are used, not just present. Second, in the number of fatalities.
This correspondent and colleagues have collected all the documented cases where handguns have actually been used in defense against bears. If readers know of any others, we welcome the additions. The current number is 173 incidents in North America where only handguns were used. There were three failures for a 98% success rate and no fatalities. There were 39 incidents where people were injured, and handguns were present and used. In 21 of those incidents, the injury occurred before the handgun was fired.
In the latest bear spray data, there are 175 incidents where bear spray was used in North America. There were 17 incidents where bear spray failed when used. (P. 122). There were five incidents where there were fatalities. There were 41 incidents where there were human injuries. It is unknown how many injuries occurred before the bear spray was sprayed.
The criteria for failure in the bear spray studies is essentially the same as in our study about handguns. The major exception is this: bears are killed with handguns, stopping their behavior. Bear spray does not kill bears.
The bear spray data collection for the latest paper ended in 2020. The handgun data collected by this correspondent and others has been updated to January of 2025.
There have been five more people killed in four incidents where bear spray has been sprayed in defense against a bear between 2020 and 2025. The recent case where Anthony Pollio was killed by a bear in Glacier National Park, will likely make the total six more in North America, for a total of 12 worldwide, 11 in North America.
Fatalities are scrupulously investigated and reported. They avoid the problems of inherent selection bias. Worldwide, one incident has been documented where a .22 rimfire handgun was fired in defense against a polar bear. The person was killed by the bear. There will be others, but once in 130 years is not bad.
While the numbers are small, the message is clear: Bear spray works about 90% of the time. Handguns work about 98% of the time.
Bear spray is not faster to deploy or easier to use. All the methods take about the same time to learn to use effectively. An afternoon’s worth of training is effective. A minute a day of practice improves response time by a half second or more in a week or two.
Do not practice with a loaded handgun outside of a safe place to shoot.
Do not practice drawing an active can of bear spray.
The chances of being killed by a bear while using bear spray are much higher than that of being killed by a bear while using a handgun.
There have been three incidents where handguns alone were used in defense against a bear, and a person was wounded by gunfire. All three were self-inflicted. All three said the injury from the handgun was less than the injury prevented by shooting the bear.
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About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
