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John D. Hays - New Mexico

Hi, I found this trenchant comment on a YouTube video. I don't know Mr. Syverson, but found it more interesting than the video he was commenting on:

Bear Attack Shot Placement -- Scott Syverson – March 2018

Bears, in all three North American species, are highly robust due to the oxygenation capacities of their blood. These bears can persist in an attack for greater than sixty seconds after their heart and lungs have been destroyed before they start to experience onset of central nervous system failure from oxygen starvation. This is why the statistics skewed handgun repulsion as being less effective.

There is a period of time in which the animal may be terminally dead via cessation of circulation, but they're in waning residual oxygenation consumption allowing them to reach and maul their subjects before feeling the effects of bullet damage if the primary effect of pain did not terminate the attack. A bear does not need a pulse to maul you. Only central nervous system damage by a bullet will immediately stop an attacking charge, followed by a lesser degree of skeletal damage. So bullet placement is critical, the most desirous is a bullet to the head.

This is also why the statistics skew in that gun defense required four shots on average. What is missing is a cause and effect relationship. Did the first bullet do the job of destroying heart/lung/circulation and the remaining shots added no additional damage? Is the average of four shots due to the fact that in the 60 seconds of residual oxygenation reserve before reserves were consumed a shooter can get off multiple shots? The statistics presented cannot address this and may be misleading. This goes to your strategy of effectively using a gun. By choosing and practicing to shoot center mass for soft tissue destruction of heart/lungs you may by design giving a bear sixty seconds to do what they want with you.

I recommend practicing for bullet placement in the head. First, a bear charging is a straight-at-you affair with the head in the center mass column but usually higher in that column. If you miss high and the charging animal is coming downhill, you have a chance of striking the spine in the rear sections immobilizing the animal instantly. Wrong bullet selection of soft lead may not have the penetrative powers of hard case bullets, but this is not what headshots deliver. The goal is to transfer kinetic energy to the central nervous system core. No animal, bears withstanding, have any particular hardening or hardiness against powerful blows to the brain.

If your shot placement is offline horizontally, you stand a good chance of busting a shoulder or more hopefully destroying a sensory organ in the head like an eye, ear, or nose, all of which will have a much greater probability of disrupting a charge. Again, this is why pepper sprays are more effect - the attack strategy is to disrupt a bear's sensory suite and thus its ability to execute an attack. This is also why Alaskan guides carry short-barrel shotguns with a mix of slugs and 00 buck shot. The goal is to tear up a bear’s face and head, and thus its sensory suite to disrupt attacks along with heavy slugs to break the skeleton, rather than selecting for soft tissue heart/lung damage as a means to stop attacks.

Headshots, shots higher in the centerline rather than center mass targeting create a totally different result pattern. All this is a long-winded way of saying that the statistics quoted can be highly misleading because guns were employed in the wrong way by most people working under the presumption of center mass targeting against a bear, whose anatomical properties are not the same as humans. The human central nervous system, due to our highly developed brain is extremely susceptible to oxygen disruption and exsanguination. This is what informs most shooters and their shooting strategies. A bears is not sensitive to this, so different shooting strategies will yield much different results.

Scott Syverson – March 2018
Comments on https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlaJsnEzjNE