‘Completely unacceptable’: Ron DeSantis wants ‘consequences’ for ‘unlawful’ Jax gun registry

At a Jacksonville BBQ restaurant on Friday, Gov. Ron DeSantis put Jacksonville’s just-terminated illegal gun registry on a spit.

“Having a gun registry is unlawful and it is a violation of people’s Second Amendment rights; there needs to be consequences for it,” DeSantis said, regarding the list of people carrying guns into government buildings maintained by Mayor Donna Deegan’s administration from July 2023 until just a few weeks ago.

“And I was surprised to see that that would happen, but our laws in Florida are very clear, our Constitution is very clear. Doing these secret gun registries is completely unacceptable,” DeSantis added.

Florida Statutes 790.335 bans registries under threat of criminal and civil penalties, including potential “felony of the third degree” charges and “a fine of not more than $5 million” via a civil action from the Attorney General.

Per the law, a “list, 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,” and “is an 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.”

The Legislature holds that “law-abiding firearm owners whose names have been illegally recorded in a list, record, or registry are entitled to redress.”

The language suggests that the policy may include a list of gun owners who carry weapons into city buildings like City Hall and the Yates Building, regardless of security concerns.

“No 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.”

DeSantis supports probes into the lists kept by private security under Deegan’s watch, an apparent reaction to a law allowing permitless carry that went into effect the day the Democrat took office.

“I know you have Republicans on the city council that are pursuing this, and I know others will likely pursue, but there will need to be accountability, absolutely,” he said.

The City Council has paused its probe at the request of 4th Circuit State Attorney Melissa Nelson.

Her investigation has seen subpoenas issued to Roy Birbal, former public safety chief Lakeisha Burton, Chief Administrative Officer Karen Bowling, Steven Long, Pat McCollough, Kelli O’Leary, former acting General Counsel Bob Rhodes, Facilities Manager Mike Soto, and former city lawyer and current City Council lawyer Jason Teal.

The Deegan administration has suggested the policy was formulated under former Mayor Lenny Curry, and produced a draft document from the last day of Curry’s term from a facilities manager, for which neither Curry’s nor Deegan’s teams claims responsibility.

However, the draft language appears to have been finalized during Deegan’s first month in office and was not enforced as policy during the Curry era.