Florida\u2019s Attorney General James Uthmeier announced his office is suing the City of Jacksonville over a list of gun owners who entered city buildings it kept for two years.<\/p>\n
Only Action News Jax has obtained a copy of the lawsuit filed in Duval County Court seeking a $5 million civil penalty against the City of Jacksonville.<\/p>\n
Action News Jax was first to report on the existence of logbooks maintained by the city of gun owners who entered city buildings<\/a> while armed between 2023 and 2025.<\/p>\n >>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n The suit seeks to enforce a state law prohibiting the creation of gun registries<\/a> by Florida cities and counties.<\/p>\n \u201cThe city\u2019s logbooks, maintained with city management\u2019s knowledge and approval, constitute such a registry,\u201d said Uthmeier in a video posted on social media announcing the lawsuit<\/a>.<\/p>\n Under the law, the Attorney General can pursue civil penalties of $5 million against municipalities if it\u2019s proven they were complicit in and aware of the creation and maintenance of a gun registry.<\/p>\n Criminal penalties can also be enforced by local prosecutors.<\/p>\n An eight-month investigation by the State Attorney\u2019s Office found no criminal wrongdoing<\/a>, with the final report contending the city employee involved did not realize what they were doing violated the law.<\/p>\n But in the newly filed suit, Uthmeier argued that as far back as 2007, city attorneys had addressed the question of tracking gun owners who entered city buildings.<\/p>\n He alleged that in that year, a memo drafted by city attorneys specifically warned the city could not create or maintain a gun registry.<\/p>\n The AG also claimed that, because the logbook policy was crafted by the city facility manager and approved by the City\u2019s Deputy Chief Administrative Officer, it was therefore \u201ccompiled and maintained with the knowledge or complicity of City management\u201d.<\/p>\n The allegation the logbook policy was approved by former Deputy Chief Administrative Officer Charles Moreland is a departure from the State Attorney\u2019s Office report, which asserted the directive was never reviewed or approved by \u201cany senior official in either the Curry or Deegan administrations\u201d.<\/p>\n Moreland served in both.<\/p>\n Appointed by former Mayor Lenny Curry in 2022, Moreland served continued to serve as Deputy CAO under Mayor Donna Deegan for about two months after she took office.<\/p>\n The AG\u2019s complaint alleges he approved the logbook policy on July 13th, less than two weeks after Deegan entered office.<\/p>\n The AG\u2019s complaint does not suggest any higher-ranking officials within the administration played a part in the creation or approval of the logbook policy.<\/p>\n The mayor\u2019s office has consistently maintained Mayor Deegan did not know of or have any role in creating of the logbook policy.<\/p>\n The State Attorney\u2019s Office also absolved the mayor of having any part in the logbooks\u2019 creation.<\/p>\n \u201cAs the state pursues politically motivated deflections that waste taxpayer dollars, the mayor remains focused on addressing affordability challenges for the people of Jacksonville,\u201d the mayor\u2019s office told Action News Jax in response to the filing of the AG\u2019s lawsuit. \u201dIt would be nice to have a state partner that is doing the same\u201d.\u201d<\/p>\n Councilmember Rory Diamond (R-District 13) said he hopes the city comes out unscathed, but believes the evidence does not lean in the city\u2019s favor.<\/p>\n \u201cI absolutely support the law. I think it\u2019s tragic that Jacksonville\u2019s running into this and that the court of law is going to decide whether or not we violated it, but it sure looks like it to me,\u201d said Diamond.<\/p>\n Jacksonville Complaint <\/a> by ActionNewsJax <\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Florida\u2019s Attorney General James Uthmeier announced his office is suing the City of Jacksonville over a list of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":242601,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[1913,92246,82957,5890,28,30,29,65235,82931,116,4260,8782],"class_list":["post-268723","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-action-news","tag-charles-moreland","tag-city-buildings","tag-donna-deegan","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-gun-owners","tag-gun-registry","tag-jacksonville","tag-james-uthmeier","tag-state-attorneys-office"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268723","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=268723"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/268723\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/242601"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=268723"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=268723"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=268723"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}