Don’t think of the electronic alerts installed in the state Capitol as panic buttons. Think of them as metaphors.

These are the devices that replaced common sense in Tallahassee. Instead of retaining security measures that had long kept prevented pistol-packing desperadoes from roaming Capitol hallways and offices, the state Senate has installed panic buttons. The House of Representatives is considering similar alarms for their own haunts.

This is a panic of their own making. Our legislators are taking steps to protect themselves against their own legislation.

On Oct. 1, Florida’s latest legislative tribute to the all-powerful NRA went into effect with a law that bars any local gun ordinance from going beyond the tepid strictures of state law.

Laws that prohibited guns in parks or libraries or public buildings or beaches (except for courthouses, hospitals and schools) were tossed aside. Anyone with a concealed gun permit — not an exclusive club in Florida — can now pack heat inside city or county halls or school district headquarters, though not in the actual school board or city or county commission meetings. (Presumably, a few of our state legislators have attended sessions when frothing constituents come to the microphone to rage dissent. The prospect of adding the bulge of a holstered Glock to this scenario must have been disconcerting even to the most slavish of NRA sycophants.)

The law was just another of the ever-wackier measures passed to appease the gun lobby. The 2011 Legislature also made it illegal for a physician to question a patient, or in the case of a child, a patient’s parents, about firearms in the house. A psychiatrist treating a suicidal teen, for example, could not make such an inquiry. Unless a federal judge finds the Second Amendment doesn’t actually pre-empt the First, that particular treatment would become a criminal act in Florida.

Florida had already enacted a state law restricting local gun ordinances back in 1987. Of course, local governments, which deal with wild-eyed crazies close-up and personal, simply ignored the ’87 version. Last year, however, the Legislature added heavy fines and the threat of removal from office. Suddenly, “no firearms allowed” signs in parks and playgrounds and public buildings came down.

But lawmakers discovered that their bit of legislative pique, aimed mostly at South Florida, ricocheted back on Tallahassee. Capitol building security could no longer ask visitors with concealed firearms to leave guns at the front desk. Last month, the Palm Beach Post reported that Capitol security met with worried Capitol staffers. “People are allowed to walk freely through the Capitol as long as they have a concealed weapon permit,” Capitol police officer Scott Winfrey told the staffers. “They will not be marked, nor stopped nor detained in any way.” The only refuge would be inside the chambers while the House or Senate is in session.

To quell their anxiety, staffers were given panic buttons.

“It’s just so predictable,” Broward County Commissioner Stacy Ritter told me via e-mail Wednesday. She wrote about the hypocrisy of a Republican-led Legislature repeating “the ‘local control’ mantra and then [taking] away our authority, as they do with property tax issues — and this gun legislation – again and again.”

In October, Ritter and all but one of her fellow Broward County commissioners voted to ask the Legislature to pass a special bill allowing Broward to enact its own gun ordinances, tailored to the particular circumstances of an urban environment. Commissioner John Rodstrom, also by e-mail, stated, “Weapons should not be permitted in government buildings…. Everything should be done to protect the occupants while in our buildings. Unfortunately past incidents have taught us that we cannot be too careful.”

The Palm Beach County Commission went further, defying the Legislature by retaining the county’s five-day waiting period for gun purchases (state law calls for three days) and filing a lawsuit challenging the Draconian penalties attached to the new law.

Despite the Broward or Palm Beach commission rebellions, there’s not much hope local governments will get a chance to modify Florida gun laws. Though, to be fair, if a gunman goes berserk in county hall or a public park, Tallahassee has given local government officials a new option.

Just hit the panic button.