Originally Posted by phinney
The .44 would be better than nothing but killing a brown bear takes a well placed shot. The preferred cartridge by most people for these brutes is the .375 H&H, much, much more stopping power than a .44 magnum. And even then...
Having the gun and getting the opportunity to use it are two different things. Going out in bear country alone is taking a chance, even properly armed. Lots of cases of pairs of hunters being unable to successfully defend themselves from a grizzly attack.
What is truly sad is that this very dangerous type of bear was already identified as a problem and rather than putting it down considerable public money was wasted to, in the end, get an innocent person killed in a truly horrible way.
It had a right to be given a chance. If we put down every bear that posed what is seemingly a small problem (as this one 'appeared' to be) we would end up being without bears. I am happy to say that is a very popular way to deal with bears and works 99% of the time, and in fact, leaves us our animals and natural habitat to enjoy.
As I said before this was a series of stupid humans dealing with an obviously humanized (used to human habit) grizzly. That made the situation worse. The end result was tragic unforunately.