By Igor Volsky

The last time I went to Las Vegas, it was to shoot a gun.

The intense, two-day “Defensive Handgun” course was ostensibly dedicated to those who want to become concealed carry owners. It covered all the basics -- how to shoot, gun safety, how to take care of and store a weapon. If you attend one of the classes as I did, or watch one of the many video testimonials on the organization’s website, you’ll also find these instructors are selling a lifestyle. Women in video testimonials talk about how carrying a concealed weapon gives them the the “confidence” and “freedom” to live life free from fear of “being a victim.”

I’ve dedicated much of my career to fighting for stronger gun violence prevention laws. But I learned a lot more than how to shoot a gun when I was Las Vegas -- I learned firsthand the kind of illusion the gun industry is selling to millions of Americans each year. Looking back at the horrific and tragic massacre that happened in Las Vegas this week, it’s time to confront that illusion and focus on some hard truths about what happened and why.

As a nation, we are awash in guns. We now have more guns than people in our country. One recent study showed that there are more than 90,000 concealed carry permits in the state of Nevada alone. There were no doubt plenty of “good guys with a gun” in the general area around Stephen Paddock. They didn’t make a difference in Las Vegas. The shooter killed himself before police, much less the mythical “good guys,” ever entered his room.

In fact, as the Violence Policy Center and the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence have found, and as so many police officers know, a gun in the home is more likely to be used to kill or injure an innocent person than an intruder.

So what then is an actual way to tackle the epidemic of gun violence that is actually based in reality, as opposed to the fiction sold by the NRA and the gun lobby? First, we must acknowledge that yes, it is possible to regulate firearms.

None other than the late Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia has argued in the Court's landmark Heller decision that the rights protected by the Second Amendment are not absolute -- and the government could (and I would argue must) prohibit "the carrying of ‘dangerous and unusual weapons.’"

That’s the legal answer. The political answer also runs counter to conventional wisdom but supports the notion of us taking action. Against the wishes of the gun lobby, measures to help prevent gun violence passed the ballot in three states last year, including Nevada. There’s also no question that the gun lobby didn’t want to see supporters of gun violence prevention win Senate races in New Hampshire, Pennsylvania and Nevada.

So what to do? Background checks are a natural place to start. An overwhelming majority of Americans support them. But background checks alone aren’t the answer. The man who shot Rep. Steve Scalise -- who recently started his return to Capitol Hill after months of therapy -- may have been able to clear a background check and obtain his firearms legally.  The shooter at Orlando’s Pulse -- up until this week the site of our nation’s worst mass murder -- was also a legal gun owner.

To truly tackle the gun violence epidemic, we must go directly after the guns themselves. This year, our new polling on the issue of gun violence found a strong majority of Americans support real policies that would actually make a difference. A majority of Americans, 54 percent, want to see fewer guns in circulation. Similarly, 61 percent believe that guns should be harder to get. A majority, including Americans who live in gun households, also favor bold proposals that would dramatically reduce the number of guns on our streets. Seventy-eight percent — including 65 percent who live in gun households — support creating a government buy-back program for assault weapons. Seventy-six percent would support a ban on military-style weapons. Eighty-eight percent would like to require gun licenses for all gun owners. You may think all of this is pie-in-the-sky. That the gun lobby, which spent more than $30 million just to elect Donald Trump, would never permit anything like this to happen. But I'll remind you that this year, we proved that Resistance works.

On guns -- and so many other issues -- the American public is in a very different place than conventional political wisdom. No one would have believed last October that grassroots activists would be able to prevent a Republican Senate and a Trump administration from repealing Obamacare -- but that is exactly what we’ve done this year, twice.

After initially arguing that Congress should not take action to regulate devices such as “bump stocks,” which can be used to convert a semiautomatic weapon to fire like an automatic, the NRA conceded it could support regulations to outlaw the devices.

The concession by the NRA is an important acknowledgement from the gun lobby that regulating firearms is not only appropriate, but effective. In this case, outlawing such devices is the very least lawmakers could do. Now is the time for progressives to push further and make the case that fewer guns will lead to safer communities. When they do, the American public is ready to meet them.

Igor Volsky is the Director of Guns Down, an organization advocating for fewer guns. His forthcoming book will serve as an advocate's guide to securing real gun safety reforms. Igor has appeared on MSNBC, CNN, Fox Business, Fox News, and CNBC television, and he has been a guest on many radio shows.