{"id":627730,"date":"2026-03-02T22:00:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-02T22:00:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/627730\/"},"modified":"2026-03-02T22:00:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-02T22:00:13","slug":"florida-ag-says-state-attorney-misinterpreted-firearm-registry-law-calls-for-civil-enforcement-against-jacksonville","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/627730\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida AG says state attorney misinterpreted firearm registry law, calls for civil enforcement against Jacksonville"},"content":{"rendered":"

JACKSONVILLE, Fla.<\/strong> \u2013 The Florida attorney general is challenging state attorney Melissa Nelson\u2019s decision not to pursue criminal charges after finding that city of Jacksonville security logbooks kept records of privately-owned firearms and the people who carried them into two city buildings.<\/p>\n

In a letter responding to Nelson\u2019s Jan. 2, 2026, decision, Attorney General James Uthmeier said his office lacks jurisdiction to prosecute but has a duty under Florida Statutes, to promote consistent enforcement of state law.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier wrote that section 790.335(2)(a), Florida Statutes, makes it unlawful for a \u201clocal government\u201d or an \u201cemployee of … [a] government entity\u201d to \u201cknowingly 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

Uthmeier\u2019s letter says logbooks kept from July 2023 to April 2025 contained \u201cmore than 140 entries recording the names, birthdates, ID numbers, and firearm types of over 100 individuals.\u201d The attorney general concluded those entries constitute a forbidden \u201clist, record, or registry\u201d because the entries documented privately-owned firearms, regardless of whether the log explicitly stated private ownership.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier also rejected the state attorney\u2019s finding that no one acted \u201cknowingly and willfully,\u201d writing that the statute\u2019s mental-state terms require only that a person intended to keep a log and knew the log documented privately owned firearms. Ignorance of the law, he said, is not a defense.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier faulted city leadership for failing to prevent or to stop the practice, saying the logs were maintained with city resources at City Hall and another municipal building. He warned that registries can be \u201can instrument for profiling, harassing, or abusing law-abiding citizens based on their choice to own a firearm and exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.\u201d<\/p>\n

State Attorney\u2019s office: no evidence of criminal intent<\/p>\n

The Fourth Judicial Circuit\u2019s State Attorney\u2019s Office, which investigated for eight months, concluded investigators \u201cfound no evidence of criminal intent.\u201d The state attorney\u2019s report says the logbooks began after passage of the constitutional carry law, HB 543, and were created by a public works manager seeking data on how many people carried firearms into city buildings to improve emergency preparedness.<\/p>\n

Investigators reported the directive \u201cwas never submitted to the City\u2019s Office of General Counsel (OGC) for legal review,\u201d and that the manager \u201cmistakenly believed\u201d the practice was legal. The state attorney\u2019s office said the information \u201cwas never misused or shared\u201d and found no evidence the data was distributed, copied, or used for law enforcement.<\/p>\n

The office recommended stronger legal reviews, tighter oversight and a full audit of security policies.<\/p>\n

What\u2019s next<\/p>\n

Uthmeier noted that law-abiding firearm owners whose names were illegally recorded \u201care entitled to redress,\u201d and that the city \u201cmay be assessed a fine of up to $5 million\u201d if the registry was \u201ccompiled or maintained\u201d in violation of state law. <\/p>\n

The attorney general\u2019s office did not itself bring criminal charges but signaled disagreement with the state attorney\u2019s conclusion.<\/p>\n

Uthmeier added that he was directing a member of his office to retrieve all evidence in the case for the purpose of potentially commencing civil proceedings.<\/p>\n

Mayor Donna Deegan responds<\/p>\n

Following the state attorney\u2019s report at the end of December, Mayor Donna Deegan\u2019s office said it had fully cooperated with the state attorney\u2019s investigation from start to finish, and thanked them for the careful review, adding the city will always follow the law and support constitutionally protected rights.<\/p>\n

After the attorney general\u2019s latest announcement on Monday, the mayor\u2019s office released the following statement:<\/p>\n

\u201cAs we have stated from the very beginning, the records will show that Mayor Deegan and her leadership team were unaware of this action taken by an individual employee concerned about building security \u2013 and that the practice was immediately ended once it became known. The State Attorney, who comes from the same party as the Attorney General, conducted a thorough, eight-month investigation into this matter and concluded there was no deliberate misconduct. As the state pursues politically motivated deflections that waste taxpayer dollars, the mayor remains focused on addressing affordability challenges for the people of Jacksonville. It would be nice to have a state partner that is doing the same.”<\/p>\n

Copyright 2026 by WJXT News4JAX – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2013 The Florida attorney general is challenging state attorney Melissa Nelson\u2019s decision not to pursue criminal…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":627731,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5136],"tags":[5229,10083,3188,723,7310,14521,67,586,132,5230,68,2969],"class_list":["post-627730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-america","tag-donna-deegan","tag-fl","tag-florida","tag-jacksonville","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-united-states","tag-united-states-of-america","tag-unitedstates","tag-unitedstatesofamerica","tag-us","tag-usa"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/116161834260004464","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627730","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=627730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/627730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/627731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=627730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=627730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=627730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}