Ah "some have meat and cannot eat"

A small frame .357 Glock. I hike in the mountains, often solo and during early bear season. We also have wild boar here. The pistol, loaded, with spare mag in it's carrying bag weighs right at two pounds. Good insurance, and easier to carry than a sword (the closest I own to a sword is a machete), more effective than pepper spray.

Umm.

Bear


G32


Brother. I hope you never run into a bear . Well maybe a black bear.

Welcome to the board.

I own guns for several reasons.
Self Defense: If something should happen that I need protection, it would take at least 30 minutes or so for an officer to reach my house. Why wait? Hopefully I'll never need to use guns for this purpose.

Hunting: I don't hunt much really. Mostly wild hogs, or any rapid animal that could cause danger to me, the family, or my pets. (my dog likes to kill skunks that wander into my yard.) I could go deer hunting but it just doesn't interest me much. I hunt birds occasionaly: ducks, dove, turkey, etc...

I'm sure there's other reasons for me to own guns that haven't presented themselves yet...

I only have a few. .243, .22, 12 gauge. That's fewer than most people I know.

__________________
Society is produced by our wants and government by our wickedness ~Thomas Paine

All we have here is black bear. It's the Appalachians.

Roger that. .357 should kill em good. One good hit to the CNS should shut him down.

How do you like your Glock? Just recently bought a G36 for my wife.

I really like it. I'm not much of a gun guy, the only reason I went with the Glock is that I don't fire it a lot, but when I need it it needs to work. It's very managable for being as small as it is. I was going for light weight and reliability. In practice, I've found that it is really quite accurate, too. In my situation, if I run up on a bear, it's not likely that I'll have to shoot it, boar is completely different. Very territorial little beasts. I've been hiking the Appalachian for 6 years, and have never needed it. On the range (my sister in laws' property in Alabama) I put all but one in a 10 inch circle at 25 yards. My father in law looked at the pattern, and said "Yup, that's a dead bear". Good enough for me. I'm wondering how accurate I would be with a real bear and a load in my pants.

That is one of the big reasons my wife went to the 36 when she decided she wanted to get her concealed carry.

Ok cool. There is another thread on here that may have some information that may help you out some. Take what ya like, and throw out the rest. But you sound like you have a good handle on things.

I am in NC and I know exactly what you mean by boar. They get pretty territorial, and they are pretty smart too. A while ago I was out running my dogs through the woods on base (I prefer to run the woods, its more fun that way). Coming around a turn we ran into one, wasn’t too big, but it was the time of the year that and he must not have gotten any. Not fun. And he did not quit till the dogs killed him, I did try to back down and get out of his way, but he was having none of it.. Kind of felt bad, but that is part of natural selection. I was not carrying at the time. Lucky for the dogs and I, they do not get as large down here.

It all depends on what mission was accomplished.

"Admiral Kelly, Captain Card, officers and sailors of the USS Abraham Lincoln, my fellow Americans: Major combat operations in Iraq have ended. In the Battle of Iraq, the United States and our allies have prevailed. And now our coalition is engaged in securing and reconstructing that country."
G.W. Bush; USS Abraham Lincoln; 1 May, 2003

According to this - all of the things that were asked of our troops prior to this day, were accomplished. There was no embellishment in the speech at all. MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS

I call that Mission Accomplished. I would have not used those words for exactly the same reason you point out. But I would have put up a sign, "END OF MAJOR COMBAT OPERATIONS", myself.

__________________
"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address

If I am on patrol, you aint getting that close to me. The best use of a blade, in combat, is when you are ambushing an enemy who is sound asleep at his post. Then, and only then, would a knife be effective.

__________________
"I know no method to secure the repeal of bad or obnoxious laws so effective as their stringent execution." March 4, 1869, Grant's First Inaugural Address