Ben Zumeta

I don't mean to judge if you are doing the best you can in an impossible situation, but if you feel you need a firearm at all times I hope you can get out of that situation entirely.

Mike brings up another point:

Secure food storage is vastly more important to your safety with bears around your home than any weapon is.

Unfortunately all the people who hurt themselves or unintended victims with their “survival” weapons do not post their videos much. I have spent many years of my life living in and around the closest thing to “wilderness” we have as well as living in dense urban areas. You do not need a gun in either. If you want one, I suppose many people can be responsible with them and they can be useful and humane for hunting, but my point is you really don’t need a gun in any situation, they on average do not make anyone safer.

Rattlesnakes in areas they are hunted and killed for sport or "safety" are less likely to rattle and warn of their presence to humans according to a Washington State study.

Not one thru-hiker I met carried a gun on the PCT. The last gun toter I saw was before mile 300, and despite being a paratrooper vet he was hurting beyond his ability to bear from his heavy pack (not just his gun but the mentality of "better to have it and not need it" in general) and didn't make it much farther from what I heard. I carried a full first aid kit and had Wilderness First Responder training, for emergencies, which came in handy and made my life feel more worthwhile and valid. On the other hand to contribute a different point of view from many of those expressed, I would not want to live with having used a firearm in the vast majority of scenarios they are used, so I do not carry one. I am not a pacifist, I have brawled with people bragging about or who I knew to be abusing children or women. I am willing to play the math and accept the risk of having to protect myself and those I care about with words or fisticuffs in exchange for knowing I will never accidentally or intentionally shoot myself or anyone else.

That aside, I would recommend a WFR to anyone homesteading for the healthcare savings and risk management training alone, but the biggest value is meeting amazing people at every training.

Do you really think if I had a weapon I could have determined if it was warranted to use on a mother bear and cub before it was too late? No, I could not. So maybe a gun would have helped me preemptively poach that bear, but it would have been a ridiculously irresponsible thing to do and having a gun would have only helped me do that, not actually protect myself in a necessary situation.

Weapons do not make you safer, this is proven statistically (I have studied outdoor risk management), they simply make every living thing around you less safe. So the best survival weapon is a brain that can effectively weigh and manage risk.

Hike the Pacific Crest Trail or go work in outdoor education. I met my wife on the PCT, where she had her pick of the litter as 90% of the hikers were men. Even as a straight guy, Its hard not to notice when sizing up “the competition” how disproportionately handsome, kind and intelligent dudes tend to be in situations like long distance hikes (voluntary vagrancy, happily homeless and proactively practicing poverty) and teaching outdoor ed (almost no pay or professional respect but lots of deeper rewards). I theorize this is because, in order for a guy to have the stones to choose these paths in life, he has to have the self confidence that he’s got something to offer other than money or status. You also tend to find people seeking self realization and willing to work for it.
An additional benefit for ladies in outdoor ed is how middle managers tend to be women who act like female Harvey Weinsteins in their hiring of mostly people they are attracted to.