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by\u00a0Daniel Chang<\/a>,\u00a0Fred Clasen-Kelly<\/a>,\u00a0Olga Pierce<\/a>,\u00a0Yona Gavino<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0Daralene Jones<\/a> | An analysis of hospital claims data in Florida found that firearm injuries of children disproportionately hit families in a handful of ZIP codes, almost all of them in Jacksonville, Orlando, Miami, or Tampa Bay<\/p>\n JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Just west of the St. Johns River, which divides this sprawling city racially and economically, 2-year-old A\u2019mahri Robinson was murdered in his mother\u2019s arms.<\/p>\n Ladonna Johnson was rocking A\u2019mahri to sleep in March when he was shot in the head with a gun she kept for protection.<\/p>\n A\u2019mahri loved going outdoors and taking rides in his pull-along wagon. His mother called the toddler \u201csweet\u201d and \u201caffectionate.\u201d When he was around, she said, \u201cyou just felt love.\u201d<\/p>\n Two-year-old A\u2019mahri Robinson was murdered while in his mother\u2019s arms in March. | Ladonna JohnsonThe child was close with Steven Dodson Jr., his mother\u2019s boyfriend, who had reached for the gun during an argument. Dodson, 21, in June pleaded guilty<\/a> to murder and aggravated child abuse and was sentenced to life in prison.<\/p>\n A\u2019mahri died in one of Florida\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n 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 \u2014 a rate of about 1.5 a day.<\/p>\n The newsrooms\u00a0gathered data<\/a>\u00a0that the state\u2019s hospitals use to collect payments from insurance companies or the government. The information does not identify patients but includes details about where they lived and their age, race, and other demographics.<\/p>\n The number of children killed in Jacksonville has grown so large that\u00a0a nonprofit<\/a>, Families of Slain Children, built a \u201cWall of Compassion\u201d memorial listing hundreds of people killed by gunfire in the city. Memorial organizers have stood up a second wall nearby that is filling with names.<\/p>\n Jacksonville kids were shot most often in racially segregated neighborhoods \u2014 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.<\/p>\n Nearly all the Florida ZIP codes with the highest rates of firearm injuries for children have large Black or Latino populations.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n As chief of acute care surgery,\u00a0Firas Madbak<\/a>\u00a0sees firsthand the toll exacted by guns.<\/p>\n \u201cYou see it day in and day out,\u201d Madbak said. \u201cI\u2019m working tonight, and I suspect I\u2019ll see a couple victims.\u201d<\/p>\n Jeffrey Goldhagen<\/a>, 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 \u201croot causes\u201d of preventable firearm injuries and deaths, such as poverty, lack of opportunity, and neglect.<\/p>\n \u201cThe bottom line is nobody gives a flying f\u2014 about these young men,\u201d Goldhagen said.<\/p>\n Gun violence victims and their families\u00a0face increased risk<\/a>\u00a0of depression, anxiety, post-traumatic stress disorder, and other mental health problems.<\/p>\n Throughout U.S. history, local governments have pushed industrial plants,\u00a0oil refineries<\/a>, and highways through Black neighborhoods even as\u00a0research<\/a>\u00a0linked<\/a>\u00a0them<\/a>\u00a0to increased risks of cardiovascular and respiratory diseases, cancer, preterm births, and gun violence.<\/p>\n But the Florida Department of Health does not focus on gun violence as a public health threat, Goldhagen said, despite its being the nation\u2019s\u00a0leading cause of death<\/a>\u00a0for children and teens.<\/p>\n The\u00a0State Health Improvement Plan<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n Instead, its goals include preventing or reducing sudden unexpected infant deaths and youth drownings, emergency room visits for motor vehicle crashes, and hospitalizations for traumatic brain injuries.<\/p>\n 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\u2019s children \u2014 not the Florida health department, Gov. Ron DeSantis, Mayor Donna Deegan, or 18 of 19 members of the Jacksonville City Council.<\/p>\n 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.<\/p>\n \u201cA lot of these neighborhoods have just felt like the wealth has left them,\u201d he said, \u201cand the city didn\u2019t come in to put in the amount of work they needed to.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis, a Republican, in public comments has called for few limits on how people purchase or carry firearms. He\u00a0signed a bill<\/a>\u00a0to allow Floridians to carry concealed weapons without a permit.<\/p>\n When then-U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy declared firearm violence a public health crisis in 2024, DeSantis called the advisory an \u201cunconstitutional power-grab<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n DeSantis said Florida would not follow the advisory, which recommended policies including universal background checks for gun purchases and requirements for secure storage.<\/p>\n DeSantis spokesperson Molly Best declined an interview request and to answer questions about the governor\u2019s gun policies.<\/p>\n \u201cThere isn\u2019t an agenda to end gun violence in the state of Florida,\u201d 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.<\/p>\n Research has linked increases in pediatric gun deaths from 2011 to 2023 to state-level gun policies.<\/p>\n States with permissive gun policies, such as \u201cstand your ground\u201d and open carry laws, reported higher rates of firearm deaths among children than states with strict regulations, such as weapon and age restrictions, according to a\u00a0study in JAMA Pediatrics<\/a>.<\/p>\n The study ranked Florida among a group of 30 states with the most permissive gun policies. Four states with comparatively strict gun laws \u2014 California, Maryland, New York, and Rhode Island \u2014 saw a decrease in pediatric gun deaths over the same time period.<\/p>\n Florida law<\/a>\u00a0prevents cities and counties from enacting stricter gun safety measures.<\/p>\n Research shows<\/a>\u00a0kids in disadvantaged neighborhoods are up to 20 times more likely to suffer firearm injuries than their peers in the most advantaged areas.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s disheartening,\u201d Madbak said. UF Health Jacksonville treated 255 patients for gunshot wounds in 2024, including 32 who were 17 or younger, he said.<\/p>\n In 2025, the hospital treated 269 patients for firearm injuries, including 22 who were under 18, according to Dan Leveton, a hospital spokesperson. As of Aug. 19, the hospital has treated 137 patients for gunshot wounds this year, including 18 who were 17 or younger.<\/p>\n Preventing gun violence \u201cshouldn\u2019t be a political issue, even though it is,\u201d Madbak said, adding that there is a lot of room for more effective advocacy for violence prevention.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s really an American issue,\u201d Madbak said, \u201cand our state has been impacted tremendously by this kind of violence.\u201d<\/p>\n The Pain of Mothers, Grandmothers, and Aunts<\/p>\n In Orlando, one ZIP code \u2014 32805 \u2014 had the state\u2019s highest rate of children under 18 hospitalized for a gunshot wound from 2018 through 2024, with a total of 25 children, or 125.8 per 100,000.<\/p>\n On New Year\u2019s Day 2018, Bryce Williams, 17, was\u00a0shot in a neighborhood park<\/a>\u00a0in Casselberry, an Orlando suburb. He was found dead after crashing his blue Kia into a home near the park.<\/p>\n Williams\u2019 death devastated his family, his grandmother Kim Crow told WFTV in Orlando.<\/p>\n \u201cFirst off, you can\u2019t believe that someone is taken from you so violently,\u201d Crow said. \u201cIt\u2019s heartbreaking.\u201d<\/p>\n In April, Daesean Moctezuma Orland, 18, was\u00a0fatally shot<\/a>\u00a0while attending a house party outside Orlando. Two others wounded in the shooting were taken to the hospital. Police arrested a 16-year-old boy about a month after the shooting and charged him with Moctezuma Orland\u2019s death.<\/p>\n