Quote Originally Posted by crunker View Post
I've heard this before, many times, but what evidence is there to this point? How would I defeat a skeptic who believes that sheer firepower equals survival?
At a certain point, you have to just be unconcerned about arguing with a person who thinks that carrying a gun is better than carrying bear spray; if that's what they really want to believe, they are going to believe it. It's not like there's some single source that is the "final word" and will automatically defeat any skeptic. Some skeptics are going to refuse to accept anything that doesn't square with the ideas and thus can't be "defeated". But like coq says, most experts on the subject will agree that bear mace is more effective, so your best bet would be to have them talk to such people. Or show them websites like this:

http://www.absc.usgs.gov/research/br...epperspray.htm

This is a page on bear spray from the brown bear research section of the United States Geological Survey's Alaska Science Center. It's written by a bear researcher with a Ph.D. in the ASC's Biological Science Office. Scroll down to the part saying "Even if bear pepper spray has effectively thwarted a number of bear attacks, aren’t you better off relying on a gun to do the job?" There, he states that bear spray has a better track record than guns at stopping bear attacks.