{"id":216202,"date":"2025-09-10T18:49:21","date_gmt":"2025-09-10T18:49:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216202\/"},"modified":"2025-09-10T18:49:21","modified_gmt":"2025-09-10T18:49:21","slug":"open-carry-ruling-raises-new-issues-for-jacksonville-gun-registry","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/216202\/","title":{"rendered":"Open carry ruling raises new issues for Jacksonville gun registry"},"content":{"rendered":"

A 4th Circuit State Attorney\u2019s<\/a><\/strong> investigation of Jacksonville\u2019s decision<\/a><\/strong> to force people carrying guns to sign a registry in city buildings is still hanging in suspense. But a new appellate ruling offers more indication that attitudes on guns are changing.<\/p>\n

Gov. Ron DeSantis<\/strong><\/a> and others have pilloried the gun registry<\/a><\/strong> as a violation of constitutional rights. The list of people carrying guns into government buildings was maintained by Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s<\/strong> administration from July 2023 until just a few months ago.<\/p>\n

Now, a new decision by Florida\u2019s 1st District Court of Appeal<\/a><\/strong> that seemingly would allow open carry despite the Legislature not having approved a change in law throws the registry into sharp relief.<\/p>\n

Even before the open carry decision, the list was on shaky legal grounds.<\/p>\n

Florida Statutes\u00a0790.335<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0bans registries under threat of criminal and civil penalties, including potential \u201cfelony of the third degree\u201d charges and \u201ca fine of not more than $5 million\u201d via a civil action from the Attorney General.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Per the law, a \u201clist, record, or registry of legally owned firearms or law-abiding firearm owners is not a law enforcement tool and can become an instrument for profiling, harassing, or abusing law-abiding citizens,\u201d and \u201cis\u00a0an instrument that can be used as a means to profile innocent citizens and to harass and abuse American citizens based solely on their choice to own firearms and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms as guaranteed under the United States Constitution.\u201d<\/p>\n

The language suggests that the policy may include a list of gun owners\u00a0who carry weapons into city buildings like\u00a0City Hall<\/strong><\/a>\u00a0and the\u00a0Yates Building<\/strong><\/a>, regardless of\u00a0security concerns.<\/p>\n

\u201cNo state governmental agency or local government, special district, or other political subdivision or official, agent, or employee of such state or other governmental entity or any other person, public or private, shall knowingly and willfully keep or cause to be kept any list, record, or registry of privately owned firearms or any list, record, or registry of the owners of those firearms.\u201d<\/p>\n

The State Attorney\u2019s Office issued subpoenas to Roy Birbal<\/strong>, former public safety chief\u00a0Lakeisha Burton<\/strong>, Chief Administrative Officer\u00a0Karen Bowling<\/strong>,\u00a0Steven Long<\/strong>,\u00a0Pat McCollough<\/strong>,\u00a0Kelli O\u2019Leary<\/strong>, former acting General Counsel\u00a0Bob Rhodes<\/strong>, Facilities Manager\u00a0Mike Soto<\/strong>, and former city lawyer and current City Council lawyer\u00a0Jason Teal<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The governing document apparently was drafted without the current Mayor\u2019s intent or knowledge.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n

The \u201cCheck Points and Perimeter Security<\/a><\/strong>\u201d memo from Facility Manager\u00a0Mike Soto<\/strong> was drafted June 30, 2023, during the transition between the outgoing\u00a0Lenny Curry\u00a0<\/strong>administration and\u00a0Donna Deegan\u2019s<\/strong><\/a> incoming group.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt never made it to me,\u201d Deegan said in May.<\/p>\n

Yet revision was made\u00a0July 24, 2023<\/strong><\/a>, long after Deegan was sworn in, raising questions about why her administration wouldn\u2019t be aware of the practice.<\/p>\n

The practice has since been terminated.<\/p>\n

We have reached out to the 4th Circuit State Attorney\u2019s Office to get updates on the status of the registry probe, and will update the piece when we know more.<\/p>\n

But in a world where open carry is the law of Florida, given Attorney General\u00a0James Uthmeier<\/strong><\/a> supports the court decision, gun advocates can argue that the Deegan administration is out of step with the zeitgeist and the law alike.<\/p>\n

While the state has yet to fulfill DeSantis\u2019 wishes and\u00a0pass an open carry law<\/a><\/strong>, it did pass a \u201cpermitless carry<\/a><\/strong>\u201d bill that eliminated a requirement to obtain a license for concealed carry of a weapon.<\/p>\n

The legislation the Governor signed in 2023<\/a><\/strong>\u00a0was the reason for the registry in the first place.<\/p>\n


\n\t\t\t\t Post Views: 0 \n\t\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A 4th Circuit State Attorney\u2019s investigation of Jacksonville\u2019s decision to force people carrying guns to sign a registry…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":216203,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,3188,723,16824,7310,118117,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":{"0":"post-216202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-jacksonville","8":"tag-america","9":"tag-fl","10":"tag-florida","11":"tag-gun-registry","12":"tag-jacksonville","13":"tag-open-carry","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-united-states-of-america","16":"tag-unitedstates","17":"tag-unitedstatesofamerica","18":"tag-us","19":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115181503342461670","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=216202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/216202\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/216203"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=216202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=216202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=216202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}