Surviving a Grizzly Bear Fight!

I've Never Done It...

Years ago, I read a gun magazine with one of the attention grabbing cover headlines saying "Pistols To Survive a Grizzly Attack!" or something along those lines.  Reading the article, the author simply postulated on which of the current crop of handguns on the market that he would like to have with him if he were ever attacked by a grizzly.  He had never been attacked by a bear, didn't live in grizzly country, and probably had never actually hunted grizzly with a handgun.  All that being said, he used a little common sense, some overall background knowledge in handguns, and some "book learnin'" to make his suggestions.

A friend and I were so tickled by the title and the article that it became our go-to saying for anything we hadn't done but that we spoke of with authority...  Skydiving?  You know that the rectangle ones are much more steerable than the old GI round ones.  I learned that parachuting in to the wilderness to fight a grizzly.  Visiting Cuba?  All you have to do is get a loose passport page from the State Dept. saying that you are thinking of traveling to the Middle East and want to visit Israel before you go to the Arab countries.  Then you go to Canada and fly direct to Havana using the loose page, and all your passport shows is a trip to the Great White North.  I heard about some grizzlies down there that needed a butt whoopin'.  You get the idea.

Well, a lot of survival and preparedness writers and bloggers are the same way.  And I count myself that way.  Very few of the "experts" are truly experts basing everything they write on personal experience.  But we study, try different things, learn from others, and live the lifestyle to the best of our current abilities.

I have garden failures, but I learn from my mistakes.  I've never been in a gunfight, but I have seen a number of shooting victims, I'm a combat vet (Marine Corps artillery in Desert Storm), I've had hundreds of hours of training and fired tens of thousands of rounds of ammo, and I have personal friends and acquaintances who have been in shootings and I've spoken with them about it.  I've got storage foods, but not enough.  I have a 72 Jeep with no electronics, commo gear in a Faraday caged ammo can, and redundant cooking and water collection methods all that SHOULD work in the event of an EMP attack. I've attended Dave Canterbury's Pathfinder School, been winter camping, lived outside for about 4 months in Desert Storm, and I've been studying and practicing survivalism since I was in high school in the early 80's.

In short, I'm not an expert, I haven't done it all, but I have done a lot, I've read a lot, and I know a lot of people who know things that I don't.  I learn something in every conversation with them, and I hope they learn from me.  Likewise, I have hundreds of loyal readers who share ideas and lessons with me as well, and I'd assume that they think what I have to say is valuable and credible enough for them to read If It Hits The Fan rather than any of the dozens and dozens of great blogs that are out there.

I encourage you to use the "Grizzly Fighting" standard when you evaluate anything that you hear or read from an "expert" or "authority" on a subject.  Are they basing it on personal experience?  Are they using common sense, background knowledge and learned information?  Or are they just spouting wild theory, imagination and guesses?