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The increase in gun-friendly bills becoming law comes as more Floridians are registered gun owners.
As of May 31, there were 1.27 million concealed-weapon or firearm licenses issued in Florida, according to the state Department of Agri
culture and Consumer Services. The state went over the 1 million mark in Dec. 2012, becoming the first state in the nation to surpass that figure.
And the Florida Department of Law Enforcement conducted 869,457 background checks on firearm purchases in 2013. The annual number of checks grew from 406,370 in 2007, when Crist took office, to 606,655 in 2011, Scott’s first year in office. Each check includes an examination of an applicant’s criminal history and mental-health database reviews.
Coconut Creek Democrat Rep. Jim Waldman, a gun owner who has not received glowing scores from the NRA, said the proliferation of pro-gun bills is more about catering to the Republican Party’s “ultra-right” base than sound policy.
“The only way a lot of Republicans get elected is, they need to beef up their bona fides, and one way to do that is to support gun legislation,” Waldman said.
Scott signed five gun-rights bills into law this year, after signing three each in 2011 and 2012. He signed one in 2013.
This year’s offerings would prohibit insurance companies from denying coverage or increasing rates based on customers 
owning guns or ammunition. Also, they would allow people to threaten to use force, including showing guns, in self defense. Another new law would prevent schoolchildren from being disciplined for simulating guns while playing or for wearing clothes that depict firearms.
“There were not a lot of contentious bills, they were not all that controversial, there were just some contentious people,” Hammer said.
Besides the opposition to “docs and glocks,” most of the gun related controversy in recent sessions has been through failed efforts by advocates seeking to repeal the 2005 “stand your ground” law, which says people can use deadly force and do not have a duty to retreat if they think it is necessary to prevent death or great bodily harm
The so-called “warning shot” law approved this year modified “stand your ground” by extending immunity to those who threaten to use force in self-defense.
In addition to “docs vs. glocks,” a law that restricts how doctors can talk to patients about guns, the 2011 laws signed by Scott included another one that continues to be challenged by cities and counties. That bill established $5,000 fines for county and city officials who enforce local firearms restrictions and empowered the governor to remove local officials from office if they continued to defy the state law.
In June, a judge sided with Palm Beach County against the provision that the governor could remove a county official from office for trying to enforce local gun control rules.
Not all of the gun laws have received universal praise from gun-rights advocates.
An NRA-backed measure Scott signed in 2013, crafted in the wake of 20 children and six adults being gunned down at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., was narrowly-focused on making it harder for the mentally ill to buy guns.
However, the issue put Scott in the crosshairs of two out-of-state groups.
The Colorado-based National Association for Gun Rights and the Virginia-based Gun Owners of America argued that the law — which blocks firearms purchases by some people who voluntarily admit themselves for mental-health treatment — would discourage people with mental illnesses from seeking treatment.
In a letter accompanying the bill signing, Scott noted that the measure was the product of mental-health and gun-rights advocates; he also highlighted his history of support for gun rights.
“During the 2012 GOP Convention, I was asked to issue a temporary executive order to override laws that allow people to carry concealed weapons, which I denied because it was unclear how disarming law-abiding citizens would better protect them from the damages and threats posed by those who would flout the law,” Scott wrote.
“Additionally, I’ve signed legislation protecting the privacy of firearm owners and stopping local governments from overreaching in the regulation of firearms.”
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