In some parts of this country, it's easier to buy a gun than a donut.

Here in New York, which has some of the strictest gun laws and most overrated donuts in the country, I decided to conduct a seemingly obvious experiment.

With the help of a cameraman and a stopwatch, I set out to determine what would be easier to get: a hunting rifle, or the legendary New York donut delicacy: the Cronut.

First, some background.

By 2013, New York City had long served as a melting pot for all kinds of people and all kinds of donuts. But sometime during that spring, a rumor began to spread that there was a new kind of donut in town. Part croissant, part donut, it promised to bring communities together across America’s once impenetrable pastry divide.

They called it the Cronut. Within days of its release, lines were out the door and hours long.

Meanwhile during that same spring, just four hours south, the NRA successfully defeated legislation in Congress that would have expanded background checks on gun sales, making it that much easier to purchase a weapon quickly. Even in the wake of tragedy, 40% of all gun sales required no background check at all.

While no official data about guns vs. Cronuts was ever reported, it seemed like our country was more invested in making guns more accessible, and donuts less available.

Fast forward two years, and little political progress has been made on a federal level. I wanted to know why.

Sure, it might seem glib to compare Cronuts and guns, but both could be seen as American symbols — one of violence, the other of indulgence. And while I initially set out to compare just the two, I knew it wasn’t enough. I decided to take the operation a step further and introduce new variables. After purchasing a gun and eating a Cronut, I then measured how long it took me to get a text, and to possibly receive two critical social services.

How long would it take for the average American to get breakfast, to get weapons, to get help?

The results were tragically surprising.

Part I: The Cronut

The line outside the bakery

Dominique Ansel Bakery is located on one of those New York City streets that tourists dream about, and that locals know all too well is miserable. When I arrived there on a frozen Sunday morning there was already a chipper little line, curling around the corner. Even though you can now buy a Cronuts at 13 other city locations, these totally consenting adults were dead set on getting their heavenly little slice of capitalism here.

These people seemed so happy. I wanted desperately to believe. Instead, I wrote "f*ck this" on Peach and asked the camera guy to get me a bagel.

At around 10 a.m., Jared, the appallingly handsome manager for the day, came out to tell us the line would take more than 45 minutes. The supply was limited. Some of us, he revealed, wouldn’t be able to stuff our faces with a Cronut.

Some of us would have to — grab your seat, reader — select other pastries.

But no one, not even the hopeless losers at the end of the queue, budged or even frowned. Time passed. And then on Jan. 17, 2015, at 11:49 a.m., it finally happened. In my hands — my cold, dead hands — I had a Cronut.

And, reader, it was … fine.

Sure, I couldn’t totally the tell the difference between it and an overheated Russell Stover candy I once ate out of a trashcan (long story). But it was crispy, it was soft and I am, I’ve been told, an idiot about such food-related things.

And throughout it all, us potential customers were treated like kings. Even those losers who didn’t make the Cronut cut were generously assisted by Jared, a gentle man who “could definitely help people select one of the bakery’s other fine pastries.”

While I later fed the Cronut to some indifferent vermin on the street, one thing was clear: the social contract was alive and well in Soho.

TOTAL TIME: 2 hr, 15 minutes, 43 seconds

Part II: The STD test

Oh New York, the home to so many New York values: kindness, compassion, Jews. The city is known for having one of the most generous social service systems in the country, which is why I then decided to expand my experiment, and measure how long it took me to get a needed social service — no, not a Cronut, an STI test — compared with how long it took to acquire a lethal weapon.

So I headed down to the NYC Department of Health in Downtown Brooklyn, where STI tests are offered for free, and which conducted more than 12,600 visits in 2014 alone. But by the time I got there, an hour and a half before the clinic closed, it was already too late, the doctors were booked. I'd have to return the next day.

I didn’t come back, because — I'm proud to report — my vagina is in great shape, but this is what the Health Department had to say:

“Visits limited to HIV testing have cycle times around 1 hour and 15 minutes," Julian Martinez, from the Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, told Mashable. "Visits that include an exam by a clinician generally have a cycle time of approximately 2 hours."

TOTAL TIME: An estimated 90 minutes to 2 hours

Part III: A text to my ex

To keep things meaningful (or to take advantage of a situation), I then decided to send a text to an ex of mine that simply read: “Emergency.”

Would it be easier to get gun or feel a little affection? Sure, my behavior might have crossed some pesky, ethical boundaries, but I was curious to see if the connection was still there, if we could maybe be friends after all we’ve been through, if goodness was still alive.

Nope. She never wrote back. Goodness dead.

TOTAL TIME: Help.

Part IV: The gun

After wiping away my post-text tears and Cronut crumbs, I embarked on the final leg of my journey.

New York City is one of the few places in the country where residents are required to buy a permit for both handguns as well as hunting rifles. New York state only requires a permit for handgun purchase — but even that requirement is rare (only 18 states currently require such permits). In order to buy a handgun, I would need to pass multiple background checks (check), prove to be of "good moral character" (errr, see above), complete this long-ass form and pay $429.75. It could take anywhere from an estimated three to eight months before I finally got a gun in my hands.

So I did what I told myself I’d never do — I went to Long Island.

Long Island is home to New York’s greatest malls and most terrifying suburbs. Its nearest gun shop is just 43 minutes away from Downtown Brooklyn. While permits are required for handgun purchase, all you need to do to get a hunting gun is pass a background check. Though they may be harder to conceal, hunting guns can be just as deadly as any gun. It felt strange to be standing in a store that sells rifles, just 1,000 feet away from a store that sells baby wipes.

As a New York City resident, I could technically buy a gun from Long Island — but I couldn't bring it back into the city. I had a friend with an out-of-city drivers license pass the background check and purchase instead. While I browsed through sports bras and socks, he picked one out.

21 minutes and 55 seconds later, he had a .22 rifle in his hands.

The simplicity of our experiment was alarming. All we had to do to get a lethal weapon was grab a car. Even with our 43 minutes of travel time added in, it took us just 1 hour and 5 minutes to get a gun.

While I carried the enormous, three-foot gun through the parking lot, few heads turned around. I knew my race afforded me a kind of security from voyeurism and from violence. I appeared unthreatening, possibly because I closely resemble a lesbian Harry Potter. My presence was unremarkable. It's become so familiar to see guns in America, even in a state, and next to a city, with some of the strictest gun control laws in the country.

"We have a patchwork system of laws," Allison Anderson, Lawyer at the Center for Gun Violence, told me. "New York has some of the best. But head over to a different state and it's a different story."

And sure, I was fairly (obnoxiously) confident about the outcome from the start. But the numbers shocked me.

I couldn't help but compare it the experiences I had as a social worker, trying to help my younger clients get SNAP benefits (otherwise known as food stamps). No matter what time of year we applied, or how throughly we completed the application, there was always a long waiting period between applying for food stamps and receiving them. The official government estimate hovers around three weeks, with rare exceptions made for emergencies. Yet so many of my clients waited for as long as six months, logged down by seemingly infinite Benefits Eligibility Verification hearings.

Even the application process itself takes a minimum of 30 minutes. That's with a fast computer, and a trained social worker — luxuries that most applicants won't receive. We always tried to complete as much of the application as we could in the office. There weren't any Jareds at our local benefits office, offering to help us select "HRA's other fine pastries." It was always painful for them to go, and I couldn't blame them. People treat you differently when you're a consumer with credit card than a regular person, asking for help.

It says so much about a country where it's easier to get a gun, than it is to get a dumb donut, a needed medical exam or food in your stomach.

The next morning, we returned the gun to the police through their gun buyback program. To be honest, they couldn't care less about the gun we bought (which was, admittedly, a gun designed for killing varmints).

Still, it felt so good to wipe the crumbs off my face, get the weapon out out my hands. It was a silly experiment with a predictable result. But it hurt, the whole time.