Dan's appeal to authority is pretty weak.

Some guy does a study and some rangers give an anecdotal opinion that bullets = about 50% chance of injury and bear spray = some unspecified percentage less than 50%.

Then another study says bear spray is "90% successful to deter an attack . . . versus . . . 84% for hand guns". That doesn't sound too compelling, bro. Is that even statistically significant? Does it consider the skill level of the people with firearms? Did they control for drunkenness, etc?

I personally would prefer a flamethrower. Cuz this one time a bear was mauling my great grandpappy and then this other guy pulled out a flamethrower and it was super-effective. Plus, there are literally zero reports of people getting mauled who were carrying a flamethrower.