It *should* be easier

Old and busted: "It’s easier to obtain a gun than a book."

New hotness: "It's easier to buy an AR-15 than it is to register to vote."

Both statements are bull pucky of course, but we'll focus on the latter since it's the latest falsehood to be making the rounds. 

National Review's Charles C.W. Cooke: 

Let’s start with its veracity. It is indisputable that commercial firearms sales in Georgia — which is to say almost all firearms sales in Georgia — require more documentation and more steps than does voter registration. To register to vote in Georgia, one must be a U.S. citizen, be resident in the county in which one is registering, be 17 and a half (18 to actually vote), and not be a felon or mentally ill. In addition, one needs either an unexpired Georgia drivers license, a State ID number, or a “paper registration form.” Registration can be done online, and takes five to ten minutes. To buy a gun from a commercial seller in Georgia, one must be a U.S. person, be resident in the state, be 18 (to buy a long gun) or 21 (to buy a handgun), and not be a felon or mentally ill. In addition, one needs to present a state-issued photo ID, to fill in Form 4473 (which asks many questions, including about drug use), and to undergo a criminal background check conducted by the FBI. The latter process takes longer — and involves more hoops — than does registering to vote.

Cooke also emphasizes that while there are rare occurrences where buying a gun is easier, it's an apples-to-monkey wrenches comparison.

To privately transfer a firearm in Georgia, one must meet the same eligibility requirements as for commercial transfers: One must be a U.S. person, be resident in the state, be 18 (to buy a long gun) or 21 (to buy a handgun), and not be a felon or mentally ill. But one does not need to provide ID or undergo a background check. In the real world, there are, of course, many good reasons for the state to decline to regulate the transfer of private property — including that it is extremely difficult to do well, that compliance tends to be low (even in deep blue states), that it doesn’t help catch criminals, that it rarely intersects with mass shootings (in both Georgia and Colorado, the guns were bought after a background check), that it involves the de facto creation of a gun registry, and that it is hard to devise a useful set of rules that don’t also prevent friends and family from loaning or giving each other guns.

This is an example of why the future of this country is so very much in peril. Instead of verifying whether or not a spectacularly dubious claim is true, one will run with a pithy little soundbite so long as it validates one's worldview. The woeful lack of critical thinking skills is fast approaching a crisis level. 

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