Back in May, I noticed something odd in a Hillsborough County (FL) Sheriffs Office press release about a man arrested for shooting his girlfriend. I mean odd beyond the guy using a loaded gun for foreplay (pro-tip: don’t do that).

“involving his registered hand gun.” While most people realize that very few states have any sort of firearms registration — and Florida is not one of them — Florida takes it a little farther with FS 790.335.

(2) Prohibitions.–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.

(4) Penalties.–

(a) Any person who, or entity that, violates a provision of this section commits a felony of the third degree, punishable as provided in s. 775.082 or s. 775.083.

In Florida, creating a firearm registry is a third degree felony good for five years in prison. So why did HCSO claim the perp’s gun was “registered”?

It took a month and a half, with multiple emails to HCSO and the Florida Attorney General’s office, but I got an answer.

Hello Carl,
That was an error on our part. It was meant to imply that the man involved had a legally purchased gun, since media was inquiring if it was stolen or not.
We realize that there is not a gun registry. Here is a link to the updated article:

https://www.hcso.tampa.fl.us/About-HCSO/Press-Releases/Releases/2019/May/19-239.aspx

Thank you,

Crystal Clark
Chief Communications Officer
Hillsborough County Sheriff’s Office
Email: cmclark@hcso.tampa.fl.us
Office: 813-247-8094

Given that only nine (ten, sort of) states have any form of firearm registration, and Florida has a statute making the creation of a registry a felony, why in the world would it even occur to them to use “registered” to imply “lawfully owned” or simply “his”?

It will likely take another six weeks to get that answer.

[Permission to republish this article is granted so long as it is not edited and the author and The Zelman Partisans are credited.]