Gunshine State (gun + Sunshine State)

“Gunshine State” (gun + Sunshine State) is a Florida nickname that has been featured on many gift items, such as T-shirts, posters and bumper stickers—and often illustrated with a handgun superimposed over a map of the state of Florida.
 
The “Gunshine State” term began to be used in 1987 by opponents of a proposed law on concealed carry. Florida Representative Ron Silver was an opponent of the law and possibly coined “Gunshine State,” but he changed his opinion after the law was passed and murder rates went down.
 
       
Orlando (FL) Sentinel 
Gun-shy Lawmakers Rush To Tighten Up Firearms Bill
October 3, 1987|By Donna O’Neal, Sentinel Tallahassee Bureau (Sentinel Tallahassee bureau chief Donna Blanton contributed to this story.)
TALLAHASSEE — While cartoonists had a field day Friday with Florida’s new gun laws coining nicknames such as ‘‘The Gunshine State,’’ legislators moved to plug a loophole allowing people to openly carry weapons.
 
An agreement between lawmakers and gun lobbyists to fix the law, which went into effect Thursday and eases restrictions on concealed weapons permits, came in the wake of reports that people wearing guns were spotted in shopping centers and other public buildings.
 
Google Books
Time
Volume 130    
1987
Pg. ?:
Police expressed concern, and the tourist industry faced a hurricane of bad publicity; editorial cartoonists dubbed Florida the “Gunshine State.”
 
17 November 1987, Springfield (MA) Union-News, “Florida’s gun-toting image might repel visitors, too” by Neal R. Peirce, pg. 19, col. 2:
From the national and world press have come jibes about “the Gunshine State” and “Florida’s new crop of pistol packers.”
 
Orlando (FL) Sentinel
Letters to the Editor
June 12, 1989
THE JUNE 1 editorial ‘‘Red dawn in ‘Gunshine State’ ‘’ stated that a computerized background check for handgun buyers would ‘‘fall far short’’ of the seven-day waiting period advocated by state Rep. Ron Silver.
(...)
Steve Roush
PALM BAY
 
Google Books
Armed America:
The Status of Gun Control
By Elaine Landau
Englewood Cliffs, NJ: J. Messner
1991
Pg. 74:
In satirical cartoons and editorials, Florida had been dubbed the “Dodge City of the South” and “America’s Gunshine State.” Some even comically suggested that the state’s official bird ought to be the skeet.
 
Google Books
The Second Amendment Primer:
A citizens’ guidebook to the history, sources and authorities for the constitutional guarantee of the right to keep and bear arms
By Les Adams (Lawyer)
Birmingham, AL: Odysseus Editions
1996      
Pg. 235:
Terms like “Florida, the Gunshine State” and “Dodge City East” were coined to suggest that the state, and those seeking passage of the law, were encouraging individuals to act as judge, jury, and executioner in a “Death Wish” society.
   
Shot In The Dark
April 24, 2003
Concealed Carry Redux - You’ll know them by their enemies.
(...)
In 1987, Florida state senator Ron Silver coined the phrase “The Gunshine State”, and predicted that the streets of Florida would be like Dodge City East, after Florida passed its concealed carry law. He’s had the good grace to eat his crow in public over the past ten years or so.
 
Urban Dictionary
Gunshine State
The State of Florida. A play on words on “Sunshine State” Called this because it’s shaped kinda like a gun. Also because there have been more concealed weapons permits issued in Florida than any other state in the Union. 1 in every 49 Floridians has a concealed carry permit.
Criminal 1: Hey lets go mug that old granny over there.
Criminal 2: Hell no this is the Gunshine State she’ll blow us away!
by jackbauer24 December 08, 2006
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Chocolate Ty : a novel
Author: Cheryl Sutherland
Publisher: [Stone Mountain, GA] : Platinum Peach Press, ©2006.
Edition/Format:   Book : Fiction : English
Database: WorldCat
Summary:
In Riviera Beach, Florida, the reign of drugs, thugs and their violence ran the city. A young woman named Tyrena overlooks all of that to find herself in a love-filled romance with one of the largest kingpins in the “Gunshine State.” To Ty, their love was like none other and had grown from a firm foundation of trust into a bond that no one could alter ... or so she thought. When things turned physical, Ty sought to break away from Tilak’s clutches only to discover he has accomplices everywhere
   
Vin Suprynowicz
Carrying legal pistols across state lines
This entry was posted on Sunday, November 27th, 2011 at 8:44 am.
(...)
“Prior to its passage in 1987, opponents of the law claimed that a carry law would turn the Sunshine State into the ‘Gunshine State.’ It was a cute jingle, but their dire predictions never materialized,” the younger Pratt reports. “Murder rates started dropping immediately after the passage of the law, prompting one of the chief opponents, Rep. Ron Silver, to admit that he had been wrong about concealed carry.
 
OCLC WorldCat record
Fatal sunset : deadly vacations
Author: Mark Yoshimoto Nemcoff
Publisher: Los Angeles, CA : Glenneyre Press, [2012], ©2012.
Edition/Format:   Book : English : First edition
Contents:
Cruise ship disappearances—
What happened aboard the Costa Concordia?—
Mexicode red—
Interview with Maureen Webster—
Florida, the Gunshine State—
 
OCLC WorldCat record
The last gun : how changes in the gun industry are killing Americans and what it will take to stop it
Author: Tom Diaz
Publisher: New York : The New Press, [2013]
Edition/Format:   Book : English
Contents:
A reign of terror—
Our daily dead: gun death and injury in the United States—
Supreme nonsense and deadly myths—
Women and children last—
Two tales of a city—
The third wave: beyond the gunshine state—
 
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Newsmax
Florida Gun Laws and How They Compare Nationally
Wednesday, 05 Nov 2014 08:31 PM
By Alana Marie Burke
Gun laws in the United States vary from state to state and while some areas such as Washington, D.C., and New York severely restrict Second Amendment rights, Florida gun laws are characterized by more lenient right-to-carry laws.
 
Gun owners have nicknamed Florida the “Gunshine State,” not only because of its geographical shape, but also because of the state’s limited gun control laws and the high volume of concealed weapon permits issued to gun owners.