According to a 2012 report by the Children's Defense Fund, gun homicide was the leading cause of death for young blacks aged 15 to 19 and they were eight times as likely to be victims than their white counterparts. Since 1979, 44,038 black children and teenagers were killed by guns, nearly 13 times more than the number of recorded lynchings of blacks of all ages from 1882 to 1968, according to the group. Recently, the fatal shooting of a young African American girl in Chicago just days after she performed at President Barack Obama's January inauguration put a poignant face on the issue