Good points. I agree on people being the most dangerous. For some reason, we seem to attract crazy people around here. 
I figure a 9 with a decent sized magazine ought to take care of most of those problems. For bears I'd rather have something a bit larger. Thank goodness we don't have any snakes!!!!!!! I grew up around rattle snakes in Wyoming, and I'm sorry, but I really, really don't like them.
You can keep your snakes down there. 
