JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – The Florida attorney general is challenging state attorney Melissa Nelson’s 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.
In a letter responding to Nelson’s 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.
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Uthmeier wrote that section 790.335(2)(a), Florida Statutes, makes it unlawful for a “local government” or an “employee of ... [a] government entity” to “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.”
Uthmeier’s letter says logbooks kept from July 2023 to April 2025 contained “more than 140 entries recording the names, birthdates, ID numbers, and firearm types of over 100 individuals.” The attorney general concluded those entries constitute a forbidden “list, record, or registry” because the entries documented privately-owned firearms, regardless of whether the log explicitly stated private ownership.
Uthmeier also rejected the state attorney’s finding that no one acted “knowingly and willfully,” writing that the statute’s 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.
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 “an 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.”
State Attorney’s office: no evidence of criminal intent
The Fourth Judicial Circuit’s State Attorney’s Office, which investigated for eight months, concluded investigators “found no evidence of criminal intent.” The state attorney’s 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.
Investigators reported the directive “was never submitted to the City’s Office of General Counsel (OGC) for legal review,” and that the manager “mistakenly believed” the practice was legal. The state attorney’s office said the information “was never misused or shared” and found no evidence the data was distributed, copied, or used for law enforcement.
The office recommended stronger legal reviews, tighter oversight and a full audit of security policies.
What’s next
Uthmeier noted that law-abiding firearm owners whose names were illegally recorded “are entitled to redress,” and that the city “may be assessed a fine of up to $5 million” if the registry was “compiled or maintained” in violation of state law.
The attorney general’s office did not itself bring criminal charges but signaled disagreement with the state attorney’s conclusion.
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.
Mayor Donna Deegan responds
Following the state attorney’s report at the end of December, Mayor Donna Deegan’s office said it had fully cooperated with the state attorney’s 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.
After the attorney general’s latest announcement on Monday, the mayor’s office released the following statement:
“As 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 – 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."