By Daniel Chang, Fred Clasen-Kelly, Olga Pierce, Yona Gavino and Daralene Jones, KFF Health News
This story also ran on The Trace, in collaboration with Action News Jax and WFTV.
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Just west of the St. Johns River, which divides this sprawling city racially and economically, 2-year-old A’mahri Robinson was murdered in his mother’s arms.
Ladonna Johnson was rocking A’mahri to sleep in March when he was shot in the head with a gun she kept for protection.
A’mahri loved going outdoors and taking rides in his pull-along wagon. His mother called the toddler “sweet” and “affectionate.” When he was around, she said, “you just felt love.”
The child was close with Steven Dodson Jr., his mother’s boyfriend, who had reached for the gun during an argument. Dodson, 21, in June pleaded guilty to murder and aggravated child abuse and was sentenced to life in prison.
A’mahri died in one of Florida’s most violent places for children: Jacksonville. This city has three ZIP codes that rank among the 10 worst in the state for firearm injuries involving children.
Every year, hundreds of children are hospitalized in Florida with gunshot wounds, and overwhelmingly, they come from a tiny number of ZIP codes, an exclusive analysis of hospital data by KFF Health News and The Trace found.
Hospital billing data obtained from the Florida Agency for Health Care Administration shows that from 2018 to 2024 more than 4,000 children 17 or younger were hospitalized for firearm injuries — a rate of about 1.5 a day.
The numbers reflect how Florida’s long history of racial discrimination and permissive gun laws undermine public health, said researchers, public officials, community activists, and grieving parents.
Jacksonville kids were shot most often in racially segregated neighborhoods — a legacy from the early 20th century of state-sanctioned discrimination in housing, banking, and investment. These areas today are plagued by pollution from defunct city-run trash incinerators, garbage-strewn lots, dilapidated housing, poverty, and other problems that local leaders have been promising to fix for more than 50 years.
Nearly all the Florida ZIP codes with the highest rates of firearm injuries for children have large Black or Latino populations.
Perhaps nowhere is the toll of gun violence more evident than at UF Health Jacksonville, a safety net hospital and the only Level I trauma center in northeastern Florida.
As chief of acute care surgery, Firas Madbak sees firsthand the toll exacted by guns.
“You see it day in and day out,” Madbak said. “I’m working tonight, and I suspect I’ll see a couple victims.”
Jeffrey Goldhagen, a UF Health pediatrician and former health director for Duval County, which includes Jacksonville, said state and local leaders have failed to address what he called the “root causes” of preventable firearm injuries and deaths, such as poverty, lack of opportunity, and neglect.
Gun violence victims and their families face increased risk of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health problems.
But the Florida Department of Health does not focus on gun violence as a public health threat, Goldhagen said, despite its being the nation’s leading cause of death for children and teens.
The State Health Improvement Plan, a set of goals developed by the health department and an advisory committee, does not mention guns, the toll they take on children, or efforts to reduce firearm deaths and injuries to young people.
And yet, no one with the authority to address this public health crisis would agree to talk to KFF Health News about gun violence and its toll on Jacksonville’s children — not the Florida health department, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mayor Donna Deegan, or 18 of 19 members of the Jacksonville City Council.
Only Council member Jimmy Peluso responded. Peluso said the city has long ignored the needs of neighborhoods with high rates of firearm injuries among children.
“A lot of these neighborhoods have just felt like the wealth has left them,” he said, “and the city didn’t come in to put in the amount of work they needed to.”
DeSantis, a Republican, in public comments has called for few limits on how people purchase or carry firearms. He signed a bill to allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit.
When then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis in 2024, DeSantis called the advisory an “unconstitutional power-grab.” DeSantis said Florida would not follow the advisory, which recommended policies including universal background checks for gun purchases and requirements for secure storage.
“There isn’t an agenda to end gun violence in the state of Florida,” said Jean Francis, a former pediatric nurse who leads the Jacksonville chapter of Moms Demand Action, part of a nonprofit that advocates for stronger firearm laws.
Research has linked increases in pediatric gun deaths from 2011 to 2023 to state-level gun policies. States with permissive gun policies, such as “stand your ground” and open carry laws, reported higher rates of firearm deaths among children than states with strict regulations, according to a study in JAMA Pediatrics. The study ranked Florida among a group of 30 states with the most permissive gun policies. Four states with comparatively strict gun laws — California, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island — saw a decrease in pediatric gun deaths over the same time period.
Research shows kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods are up to 20 times more likely to suffer firearm injuries than their peers in the most advantaged areas.
UF Health Jacksonville treated 255 patients for gunshot wounds in 2024, including 32 who were 17 or younger, Madbak said. As of Aug. 19, the hospital had treated 137 patients for gunshot wounds this year, including 18 who were 17 or younger.
“Preventing gun violence shouldn’t be a political issue, even though it is,” Madbak said. “It’s really an American issue, and our state has been impacted tremendously by this kind of violence.”
Leading Cause of Death
Michael Nance, chief of pediatric surgery and trauma at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, said there has to be an appetite in state capitals to regulate firearms and protect children from gun violence.
Nance co-authored a research letter in JAMA Pediatrics finding that the number of states where guns were the leading cause of death for children and teens increased from zero over the period 2004 to 2008 to 24 from 2019 to 2023.
Motor vehicle deaths among children, once the leading cause of death in that group, have declined primarily because of safety interventions undertaken by governments and car manufacturers, he said, from seat belt laws and speed limits to air bags and antilock brakes.
“We’ve really done almost nothing to change the trajectory of firearm injuries in kids,” Nance said.
Goldhagen said Jacksonville leaders tried to address gun violence through the Jacksonville Journey, an initiative launched in 2008 under former Mayor John Peyton. The program provided mentorship, summer camps, job training, and nonpolice strategies such as neighborhood beautification projects and community center programs.
Officials credited the effort with a nearly 40% reduction in homicides in Duval County in its first four years. After Peyton left office in 2011, program spending of about $15 million was slashed to $8.6 million in 2012 and about $2.3 million in 2014.
Duval County is the only large county in Florida that does not have a child services tax dedicated to programs for children, including efforts to reduce youth crime.
“There is absolutely zero political will to do anything that remotely resembles a child services tax,” said Vicki Waytowich, executive director of the Partnership for Child Health.
In 2025, Jacksonville Mayor Deegan launched a program to address gun violence called Journey Forward. But like its predecessor, Journey Forward does not have a dedicated, ongoing source of funding.
This article is republished from KFF Health News, a national newsroom that produces in-depth journalism about health issues. About KFF. About KFF Health News.