One man's BS is another man's solid advice. If you've never been in a gunfight and suddenly you're in one with something extremely hard to hit with a pistol and pretty hard to kill, most of the outcomes are pretty gruesome.
The reality is that one will probably never be in a brown bear's crosshairs, but if so they would probably not be able to draw, aim and deliver a killing shot before getting gnawed on. All the internet gunslingers want to believe they could do it, but they just can't.
In 30 years I've seen two very mad grizzly sows turned away with bear spray in AK while fishing. That's 100% effective in my experience. In 32 years with the U.S. Marshals Service I've been trained and trained others in combat handgun use. I'm really, really good, but I don't even like my odds pulling a pistol on a charging bear in close quarters. I'd be able to put some lead in one but don't like the percentages of delivering the coup de grace. I really don't like the odds of the average wannabe pistolero in the same situation.
I carry bear spray for bears, I carry a Glock 23 for bad people...you carry what you want.