Two stories from Thursday help illustrate the Second Amendment rights we enjoy as Americans.
In the first, my neighbor shot a black bear. He was at work when he got a call from his wife that a bear was in their chicken coop. Doing what Alaskans do, he went home, got his 30-30, and shot the bear. That was the end of the problem. The bear was small, probably a young two-year-old female bear that should make fine eating, so my neighbor asked me if I would help him clean the bear. I agreed to do so to help him put meat in his freezer, and to let my daughter see how a game animal is processed for food. The photo here shows her skinning the bear.
The hide was removed along with the skull and taken to the Alaska Department of Fish and Game to be inspected and sealed. They were delivered to a taxidermist on Friday. The meat from the bear was taken to a local butcher, where it will be turned into packages of delicious bear meat for the freezer. A happy ending for all the humans involved, thanks to my friend’s quick use of his firearm to defend his homestead, a right that we often take for granted as Americans living in a free country.
The second story was of a bear encounter in Alberta, Canada. You may have already read about this story; it can be found on many of the online news sites. The story was reported as a woman was walking her dog on a rural road when she was charged by a bear and narrowly escaped.
If you watch the video of the encounter, it might lead you to a little more clarity about what was going on. The bear in the video appears to be a young female brown bear. Often, young bears have not developed a fear of humans, and in spring and early summer, their hunger forces them to find food wherever they can. This bear looks like it was trying to eat the woman’s dog. The bear does not look to be charging at the woman. If you have ever seen a bear charge, you know what that looks like, and this situation looks more like a hungry bear looking for a meal, and not the charge you see in an aggressive bear attack.
The woman did some things correctly; she shouted at the bear loudly and faced the animal while she backed away from it. There are cars visible in the direction the woman backed toward, so presumably she was headed for a secure location in a rural neighborhood. Those were all smart moves.
The woman did some things I would have done differently. The first is getting her phone out to record a video while she was trying to get away. What a strange world we are in, when the first thing someone does when facing a life-threatening situation is to grab their phone to make a video. I can’t speculate why she would do this other than recording it so that if she were killed, the police would be able to identify the bear.
The second thing the woman did wrong was not letting her dog off the leash. Dogs are faster and more agile than humans. If the dog had been let off its leash, some dogs would attempt to defend their master, or perhaps it would have run away. In either case, it would have removed the dog from the woman’s immediate vicinity, reducing the threat.
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I shouldn’t be too harsh in criticizing her. It is easy with the benefit of hindsight to say what she should have done. She did what she had to in the moment, and fortunately, both she and her dog escaped injury, giving this story also a happy ending.
There are some similarities to these two bear stories, but with one exception. The woman didn’t have a gun with her. Canada has very restrictive gun laws. While Canadian citizens may own hunting rifles or shotguns, it is unlikely a woman walking her dog in her neighborhood is going to be shouldering a long gun. A large caliber handgun in a shoulder holster would have made more sense, but they are not permitted in Canada.
In 2022, the Canadian government passed legislation banning the sale, purchase, transfer, or importation of handguns for most Canadian citizens. Without a firearm, the woman could have been badly mauled or lost her life to the bear.
These two stories illustrate the importance of the Second Amendment. We enjoy freedoms that citizens in other countries do not, and we should never take those freedoms for granted, lest they be taken from us.
The views expressed here are those of Greg Sarber. Read more Sarber posts at his Seward’s Folly substack.
