the several times ive visited and family i had there gave me the distinct impression that, despite it's constant mythmaking, it's a more repressive place with a broad, servile underclass of minorities where a small minority owns an absolutely deranged number of guns while most people are just going about their lives trying not to get locked up or shot.

certainly, its history as

• the only state that seceded TWICE to preserve slavery
• the entity that premeditatedly exterminated its abolitionist and free thinking communities
• the most aggressive policers of their own internal history to forget and destroy a rich tapestry of racism, cowardice and sniveling betrayal of the human spirit

has had an impact on the general perception of what "texas" is, both within and from outside.

key word is "household" gun ownership, you have a handful of loons with whole armories and a lot more people with no guns

Texas and California are respectively more liberal and conservative than people are led to believe. The main difference is which party has gerrymandered the state.

I was thinking it might be because Texas doesn't have a central database of firearms. Ownership data comes from a varied amount of sources like public health surveys or voluntary reporting. But I don't know if other states do that.

Also the demographics of Texas are way different than the image presented. The average Texan is a working class Latino person trying to survive, and then there are also suburban white folk who own entirely loaded gun safes.

i guess it is a big ass place

Probably all them suburbs in the desert