When Robert Forbes was a teenager, doctors diagnosed him with a mental illness.
But when a sporting goods store ran a background check on him when he wanted to buy a gun, a look into his medical records wasn't required, said Peter Forbes, Robert's father.
"He went out and bought a gun," he said. "He then went out to a sporting good store and bought ammunition, and then he killed himself. That's the story with our son."
Forbes and 31 people gathered at Smith Plaza on Wednesday to protest how easy it is to buy a gun.
The protesters dressed in black to honor the number of students who died last year at Virginia Tech. They laid on the plaza for three minutes, the time it takes to get a background check and buy a gun.
Forbes said background checks don't include a person's history of mental illness. If they did, his son would still be alive, and the massacre at Virginia Tech wouldn't have happened, he said.
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"The bottom line is that our son, Robert, contracted a genetic mental illness in his late teens," he said. "He was actually getting better, but the thing is that he was committed by a judge to a mental hospital on four different occasions. So, there were plenty of records that he had a mental illness and that he should have been in the system."
Alumna Monique Garza said she participated to support Robert's family.
"They lost their son because it was too easy for him to get a gun," she said, "and my son was a very good friend of his."
Garza said people begin to pay attention to the message when it gets personal.
"When it hits close to home - that's what brings people out," she said.
Robyn Forbes, Robert's mother, said she participated because of the Web site ProtestEasyGuns.org. She said she was impressed by the group's founder, Abigail Spangler.
"Within five days after the Virginia Tech incident, she got her friends together and went in front of the courthouse and did this - and just started this movement," she said. "She's actually doing one today in front of the Supreme Court, and there's going to be hundreds of people there."
She said she hopes the movement will spread across America.
Peter Forbes said a shooting can happen at UNM if gun laws aren't changed.
"The odds are definitely - I hate to say - in favor of such a negative thing," he said.
