Buying a gun is far too easy these days

GiGi Fried, North Las Vegas

Friday, Aug. 16, 2013 | 2:02 a.m.

If I wanted to own a gun, I would want to obtain it legally and take a gun safety training course so I would know how to use it properly. I would expect to fill out a mountain of paperwork and have my mental health and police record checked.

I don’t want to swing by Wal-Mart, make a purchase at a gun show or on the Internet and suddenly be armed like I’m playing “Call of Duty.”

The marketplace for firearms on the Internet, where buyers are not required to undergo background checks, is so vast that advocates for stricter regulations now consider online sales a greater threat than the gun show loophole.

A new study by Third Way, a centrist think tank with close ties to the Obama administration, found that thousands of guns are for sale online and that many prospective buyers were shopping online specifically to avoid background checks.

The only person who would be against background checks is a person who wants people who could not pass one to have the freedom to walk among us with loaded weapons.

Sometimes I want to scream, “Why do people listen to the NRA?” If the NRA wants to make stuff up, it’s free to do so.

Do politicians, such as Gov. Brian Sandoval, actually believe the American mainstream agrees with the NRA? The NRA is not thinking of you or your children; it is working for the sellers and gun makers.

There is light at the end of the tunnel, though. Sen. Harry Reid has promised another vote on this in 2014. He says “every little bit that enables advocates to keep organizing around this can only help.” That’s exactly what I’m going to do, Sen. Reid: advocate and keep organizing for sensible gun violence prevention laws.