Australia is like Texas

[Warrigal]

I've often heard that said so I thought I'd look up Wikipedia looking for the similarities.

Population Australia: 23.1 million; Texas: 26.4 million;
so that's one similarity

Land mass Australia: 7,617,930 square kilometres (2,941,300 sq mi);[SUP][[/SUP]Texas: 268,820 square miles (696,200 km[SUP]2[/SUP]) so I guess Texas is a lot more crowded than Australia.

Deserts Australia: Named deserts of Australia cover 1,371,000 square kilometres (529,000 sq mi), or 18% of the Australian mainland; Texas: less than 10 percent of the land area is desert
so I guess that Australia is drier that Texas, with more deserts in percentage terms as well as in actual area

Gun ownership Australia: 3,050,000: Texas? Who knows because it's a well kept secret but this might give you a clue

Subject: TEXAS FOLDS UNDER PRESSURE

Hard to believe, but

Texas has followed the idiot newspaper up in New York and released a map of the location of all its gun owners.
Their locations are marked by red dots on the map below:

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Texas wins.


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[SifuPhil]

Love the map, but I thought Australia was a gun-hating nation?

 

[Warrigal]

No, we have guns but we accept that they need to be licensed and, as much as possible, kept out of the wrong hands.
It takes more than wishing and talking about it for that to happen. It takes legislation and law enforcement.
We regard gun ownership as a necessity only if you have a really good reason for needing one. It's not a sanctified right.

We are pragmatic about guns, not a gun hating nation.

Me on the other hand, I'm spooked by them. But that is just me.

 

[SifuPhil]

Thanks for the clarification, Warri - I guess I was thinking of the UK or some such place.

 

[Vivjen]

UK has a similar attitude towards guns as Australia; remember our policemen don't carry guns unless on special duties.
I admit that most gun crime is carried out using illegal weopans, but that doesn't mean we need legal weopans to protect ourselves....have we been here before?!

 

[SifuPhil]

Viv, how can you claim that the UK takes the same stance as Australia when they allow citizens to own guns and their police are always armed?

 

[Vivjen]

Police are never armed on regular duty.....citizens own certain guns with a firearms license; no hand guns. Only allowed to keep them at a registered club, or in a locked cabinet, and the license is renewable every 3years, and can be taken away at any time.