OPINION: Let's see if the gun nuts were right

The state of Texas has just gone its own way, introducing a law that allows everyday punters to go strutting around with Smith and Wesson hanging off the hip.

SO MUCH for Barack Obama's fight for gun control in America.

The state of Texas has just gone its own way, introducing a law that allows everyday punters to go strutting around with the Smith and Wesson hanging off the hip like John Wayne in movie westerns.

It's probably a great fashion statement - if you like to romanticise about the old days of the Wild West - but what these American gun nuts don't seem to want to acknowledge is the Wild West was full of crime and killing.

They say they feel much safer now that Texas has passed these so-called Open Carry laws.

Having never set foot in Texas - or the US for that matter - it's hard for me to understand the thinking behind all this.

If it happened on April 1, I would have thought it was all a big joke.

In America, however, there appears to be a widely held view that you need more guns out on the street in order to make people safe.

All it takes is that one, real-life John Wayne to be on hand when some nutter starts shooting up a bar full of people, and everything works out fine.

After witnessing what happened in Australia after the Port Arthur massacre, you could be forgiven for thinking they've lost the plot.

I will be watching with great interest, over the coming months, to see what happens in relation to gun crime in Texas.