My wife isn't comfortable with the responsibility of carrying a fucking deadly weapon in the woods, nor does she want to go through the training to have the mindset and ability to use it and potentially KILL another human. So she carries bear spray.
Bear spray is a very debilitating tool. The people who I know who have accidentally been sprayed (One was just being dumb, the other had the canister left in a hot truck glove box and it discharged due to being over pressure.) They reported full debilitation with temporary lost vision, smell and hearing due to the intense pain and nervous system overload. It took them several hours to partially recover. I have the feeling Bear Spray would buy a person time to get the police.
I'm not arguing against carrying in the backcountry. I personally carry a handgun in the backcountry. But I'm against the mindset that the act of carrying a gun makes a person an instant demi-god super hero clint eastwood. The average person can't just pick it up and defend yourself. You need training. S-I-J's daughter does not need a Glock overnighted to her. While I would encourage her to at least THINK about a self defense plan while hiking solo on the AT, what defensive tools she carries come down to what she personally wants to be responsible with. I would encourage S-I-J to speak with his daughter and run through potential scenarios that she might encounter and discuss what she might do in those scenarios. (If he hasn't already.)
Reality is, the woods are pretty safe and bad stuff that happens is a major outlier, not a present danger unless you're in an area that has a history of crime (meth areas, border areas, cartel grows, etc.) That isn't really the AT. So that leaves you with planning for these sort of very random, very rare but also potentially very devastating events, which don't carry an easy answer or solution.
