[Rick Lee]

I remember seeing an episode of Cops where there was a bear stuck in a palm tree in a guy's yard in Tucson!

There are plenty of handgun rounds that will stop a bear. Of course, you need to be ready and willing to use it and, as with shooting bad people, shot placement counts for a lot. The .357SIG may not do much against a Kodiak-sized grizzly. But the bears we have in AZ are tiny by comparison. My regular bush sidearm might not kill one, but I'd rather have it than nothing.