Thanks Rick. Fascinating. The amount of conjecture and lack of info there is, well, normal. I've looked for the source of the 20K figure, have never found it. The Brookings Institute can't be so stupid as to believe what's posted there.
Here is my published statement on this common question (I get asked it by the media with great regularity). Would be glad to have you post it, so I needn't join yet another list. Credit and include my email is fine.
Alan.
------------------------------------
HOW MANY GUN LAWS ARE THERE?
"How many gun laws do we have," is a subtly biased question, of the type, "are you still beating your wife?". It implies that there is a "correct" or "best" number of gun laws, and asks, also implicitly, are there enough gun laws. This leads to a no-win debate on whether there are enough or not. If you enter such a stacked debate you lose before you begin. You must peel away the deception instead.
Everything criminal about guns is already illegal.
There are more laws than a person can reasonably be expected to remember, and they are growing annually.
There are countless legal traps for the unwary. Even for the wary.
Because criminal activity is already outlawed, new laws tend to affect only honest individuals and not criminals, and so of course people object to them.
The idea of "gun control law" has come to mean "infringement law," a rule that incrementally disarms a civilian, and has little or no bearing on crime control, which is supposed to be the goal. Infringement laws are illegal, and decent people should object to them and to the people who promote them.
If the goal of the laws is to outlaw crime, then there are enough, because all these luridly promoted acts of infamy involve many laws being violently broken (look at the long list we published for Columbine, at gunlaws.com). Ask if there is sufficient "crime" control, and everyone seems to agree there is not.
So, how many already?
Counted how? The Brady Law, for example, is one law passed by Congress, but more than 3,000 words long (some laws are only a few words; the 1999 budget bill -- one law passed by Congress -- was 400,000 words, and included entire new bodies of law). Brady ended up as several different numbered statutes on the books, and amendments to others. How many laws is that?
It originally required a waiting period, now it's a national background check, and it even regulates airline baggage. Would you call that three "laws"? Attempts to count the various things controlled by a law are fruitless -- the law is designed to expand and encompass any case brought before it.
You still want numbers? The book that describes the Texas gun laws is nearly 300 pages long. The unabridged federal guide is almost 400.
Most (though not all) of the language in an enacted "law" ends up as numbered and named "sections" or "articles." By Bloomfield Press' count, Texas has 228 numbered gun laws. (Virginia, by comparison, has 171). Federally, there were 231 numbered statutes in February, 1996, but federal gun law has grown by 14,715 words, a full 20%, since then. No count of newly assigned section numbers has been made -- no one knows precisely how many there are.
Which brings us to the most metrical way of figuring how many laws there are. Texans are under 42,042 words of state gun law, and 88,584 words of federal gun law -- a total of more than 130,000 words of law. An average novel is around 40,000 words.
So now you have a number. In Texas, you have to follow 130,000 words of law to stay legal, and on the flip side, we have this huge body of rules to use against bad people. What does that do for you? How do you interpret it against the obvious bias -- is that enough words? Let's go for 200,000, you think? Maybe 500,000, hey, go for the gold, a million. That ought to be enough to outlaw crime.
With such an overwhelming glut of gun law on the books, maybe we should (perish the thought!), try repealing some and concentrating on those that are more effective? Or even look at the endemic roots of the problem -- why do people in modern society become vicious predatory animals, and how should we handle them and protect ourselves?
The how-many-gun-laws question is specious and deceitful. Guess what. Crime is already outlawed.
Examine every new law proposed and ask:
1 - does it address a crime with a victim that is not already covered by law (exceedingly rare),
2 - On a personal level -- will it affect you in some way, or make your actions criminal if you do not follow it (frighteningly common), and
3 - is it a smart way to expend limited police and court resources, or would those precious tax dollars be best used elsewhere.
Don't forget, criminals and an armed public are not the same thing.