PAG 16, page 5
If these don't produce a laugh, perhaps this selection of us bumper stickers I have collected will. I am sure the ladies will enjoy the obviously women's lib ones:
1. Ginger Rogers did everything Fred Astaire did, but she did it backwards and in high heels.
2. I am out of estrogen and I have a gun.
3. All stressed out and no one to choke.
4. Don't upset me I am running out of places to hide the bodies.
5. Keep honking, I am just reloading.
Yes folks, the gun culture is alive and well over here. In Washington State anyone, once checked out by the police and having purchased the appropriate license can carry a concealed hand gun. It is also strange for me to see 'pickups', usually 6.5 litre diesel V8's with 3 high powered deer rifles mounted on a rack across the back window!
The gun culture here is quite different to anything I have ever experience in Australia. In rural Australia most males have a rifle because it is the quickest way to feed the dogs and yourself, we call the rabbits underground chicken. Firearms are also used to cull the kangaroos. Most people outside Australia cannot understand why this is necessary because all media reports never allow the facts to spoil a saleable story.
The facts are:
1. The roo is a grass eater.
2. Australian farmers have destroyed 75% of the tree population to grow more grass for their sheep.
3. They have also created millions of small dams for watering the sheep.
These two things have created a kangaroo paradise! Result, greatly accelerated population growth. There are now millions more roos in Australia than when Captain Cook landed, but fewer species. He was by the way the last person to discover Australia.
So why are all these extra roos a problem? Because they eat the grass that a sheep could be eating. This means that for every roo on your property, you have one less sheep. As they are herd animals, traveling in groups from 6 to 60 they will knock down fences and flatten crops with their large powerful tails while devouring you wheat and corn etc. So you can now see why bang, bang is often heard on Australian farms. Anyway, they make excellent eating. Kangaroo tail soup is just fabulous.
The gun culture in Australia is a very practical one. Like having a fishing rod. In the US it is also, BUT there is a strong fun element that would normally not have occurred to me. E.g. If you have an old car on your country property, fill it with bullet holes. In fact anything you don't want, fill it also.
Some people have a really great time and organize a 'shooting party', where everyone invited brings along an old dumped car, refridgerator, tv, vcr, washer, dryer etc. and its on, bang, bang! Everything is reduced to swiss cheese. But the real fun is watching the expression on the faces of the staff at the recycling depot when they see the carnage and are informed casually that 'yeah, we had an intruder earlier in the week'. Some people own fully automatic illegal weapons with huge magazine, also illegal, and have them rechambered to 0.22 caliber to massively reduce the cost, giving literally more bang for your buck.
A friend of mine shot up an old fiat 1500 some time ago and asked me what fiat stood for, because they are very few and far between in the US. My answer was:
1. Fix it all the time
2. Found in a tip
3. Fun in a taxi
4. I am sure Fiat enthusiasts would say First in all tests.
David Goodsir
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