It's a simple idea, just how easily can you buy a gun at a gun show?

So a CNN crew took a weekend drive 600 miles with a pocket full of cash hitting five gun shows in three states, Tennessee, South Carolina and Georgia.

First up, Alagiay in North Georgia.

The venue is small and the selection limited.

There weren't a lot of vendors.

There wasn't a lot of product out there for people to buy.

Next, the crew went north to Kingsford in Tennessee for a Saturday morning local gun show held in a hotel convention center.

It was a Smith and Wesson M.P.45-calibre semiautomatic that first caught our producer's eye.

Asking price $625.

It's a nice one. It's not brand spanking new.

It's a deal. Cash and carry, or do I have to fill out any paperwork for it?

But it's early.

And the team opts to keep looking.

10 to 20 minutes later, they circle back to the same table negotiating for the same gun.

It's a deal.

No background check.

It's not needed for a private sale.

But the seller is legally required to check I.D.,like a driver's license, to make sure the buyer is not from out of state.

In this case, no identification asked for, no paperwork, not even a question like, what are you going to do with it.

In fact, neither the seller nor buyer even used a first name.

And if that's not surprising enough, listen to what the seller said he got the gun.

I got that off of a police officer yesterday.

Really? Yes. That's right. He got it from a police officer.

Anyway you'd part with both of these for a thousand?

It was so easy.

For the next buy, the team decided to up the ante.