> Your goal as a hiker shouldn't be to kill the bear, because that's hard and will probably require a rifle or shotgun slug, but to just scare it off. Wouldn't

> Your goal as a hiker shouldn't be to kill the bear, because that's hard and will probably require a rifle or shotgun slug, but to just scare it off. Wouldn't attempting to kill the bear generally make a noise to scare off the bear too? I could perhaps see a starter pistol being as good as a regular gun for protection against bears, but better? Also (in my extremely limited experience) starter pistols are not particularly loud compared to regular guns anyway, which makes sense since who wants to wear ear protection at a sporting event?