She turned out to be a proud, friendly Texan, living and working in Australia.
The daughter of a 20-year police veteran, she loved her former Texas Governor “George Dub-ya” (who did “so much for the communit-tay”), was openly pro-death penalty and very, very pro what she called “responsible gun ownership”.
I should have known then that it would not progress from there.
“No-one could ever take our guns away from my Daddy and me,” she said, with big blue eyes and a wholesome Dallas smile.
“If someone came at me or my family, I wouldn't think twice about shooting them right in the head.”
Feeling like the ship had already sailed on this meeting, I felt compelled to argue.
“Yes, but here in Australia, we kind of think that everyone is in our family and we don't want anyone to get shot in the head,” I said, feeling like a complete hippie.
The failed date, lovely though she was, highlighted to me how impassable the chasm was between mainstream opinion on gun ownership in the US and Australia.
There has been much written in the last week about gun control in the US, and the overwhelming attitude here is that Australia has successfully controlled its firearms, especially contrasted against gun-related homicide and suicide rates in the US.
BUT HOW DID AUSTRALIA GET GUN POLICY SO RIGHT?
It wasn't until a series of massacres in the 1980's that Australia got serious about gun control.
The Milperra, Hoddle Street, Queens Street and Strathfield massacres shocked the public and prompted the states to require registration of all guns and restricted the availability of self-loading weapons.
Before that, fully automatic fire arms had been banned in every state except Tasmania since the 1930s.
THE PORT ARTHUR MASSACRE
Then came the 1996 Port Arthur Massacre, in which Martin Bryant killed 35 people - still the second-highest number of peacetime deaths at the hands of a single shooter.
On a wave of public support, then Prime Minister John Howard forced the states to adopt the National Firearms Agreement, based on the 1988 National Committee on Violence report.
It proposed bans on semi-automatic rifles and shotguns and stricter ownership and licencing.
At a special meeting of state police commissioners, Mr Howard, then only weeks into his first term as prime minister, called for a uniform approach to state gun laws to prevent interstate firearm purchase or registration.
Unlike in the US, the legislative and social responses in Australia in the fallout of a series of massacres resulted in sweeping changes to gun laws.
WHO ARE OUR GUN LOBBY GROUPS?
Game Council NSW, a statutory authority that advises and educates hunters, but has been described as "government run, and government funded (but) it's very much a pro-gun advocacy group."
The Shooters and Fishers Party is a federally registered political party, “advocating for the politically incorrect, a voice of reason, science and conservation” with aims to promote hunting in schools and on all public lands.
The Australia Party, led by Bob Katter, calls for, for “refocusing licensing efforts in-line with modern community expectations”.
But the key difference between pro-gun groups in Australia and the US, is the ideological shift away from libertarian concerns.
Australian pro-gun groups are more tied to the liberties associated with hunting, access to public land or rights to pursue gun sports or agricultural needs, as opposed to the 'right' of self-defence.
GUN BUY-BACK SCHEMES
Pressure was already building from the previous massacres during the 1980s and the states were already conducting their own schemes.
But the federal scheme is the best-known - on a wave of public support, about 631,000 firearms were handed in between 1996 and 1997, at a public cost of $500 million, funded through a one-off increase in the Medicare levy.
One yet-to-be published estimate says that about a million guns have been destroyed as a result of all the buyback schemes, or about a third of all guns in Australia.
THE AUSTRALIAN MODEL
Adjunct Associate Professor Philip Alpers from Sydney University is is a firearm policy analyst and UN delegate on gun issues.
He says that Australia has what is seen to be model legislation.
“The Australian model is being looked at by a lot of other countries, for example I testified at senate hearings in Argentina, telling them what we have here in Australia,” he said.
“There's no one-size-fits-all, of course, our laws could not just be translated to Argentina or Brazil or anywhere else, but they cherry pick the politically acceptable laws, normally from commonwealth legislation.”
He attributed the success of gun control in Australia to the determination of former Prime Minister Howard and the then Attorney General Daryl Williams for “bullying” the laws through.
“But it was also the huge up-swell of support in the fallout from those public massacres that changed everything – the cartoons in the papers at the time portrayed all gun owners as potential mass killers.”
Mr Alpers, who spoke to US news network CNN on the issue, holds little hope for a similar backlash in the US in the wake of the Newtown massacre.
“None at all, their culture is utterly different. It's a quasi-religious thing, you are not free without a gun … it's part of ideology that has been perpetuated by organisations such as the NRA, who say that you need a gun in case the government comes after you.”
“Gun control [in the US] is at the same place that tobacco was in about the fifties. A self-interest group [that is] fighting tooth and nail against change.”
“It could take 20 years.”
CARS ARE GUNS
If I were to agree to another date with my Texan friend, I would ask her about what she meant by “responsible gun ownership” and liken it to car ownership.
The regulatory formula that has worked to lower the road toll, including licensing restrictions and safety measures like seat belts, could also work to reduce deaths by firearm - but first we'd all have to agree that no-one in the family should be shot.
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