Guns killing people in Philly

The three teens are in good schools, college bound, and full of adolescent bravado. Each also knows someone who was shot and killed on the streets of Philadelphia. That kind of up-close encounter with violence and murder is not the norm for teenage America. But this is Philly, which has the highest homicide rate for African-Americans among the nation's biggest cities ? and a place where the risk of being killed is especially high for blacks under age 18. The possibility of a short life and a violent death weighs on African-American teens like Andrea Williams, Sierra Daniels, and Christopher Fuller, though they seem to shoulder the burden as if it's just an extra load of books. Andrea worries most about her younger brother and sister, afraid one of them will get hit by a misguided bullet fired by someone bent on revenge or protecting turf or just venting anger. "Sometimes I hate to walk down the street with them, because I couldn't live without my little brother and sister," she says. Nationally, the murder rate for African-Americans is more than three times the average: 19 black murder victims per 100,000 people versus five for the general population. In Pennsylvania, the disparity for black homicide is even more pronounced: 30 per 100,000, or six times the national average, according to a study released last month by the Violence Policy Center (VPC), a gun-control research group in Washington. Those numbers are "disproportionate, disturbing, and undeniable," says the VPC report, which analyzed crime data from 2004 in its study. Moreover, almost 80 percent of black murder victims in the US were shot and killed with guns, the study found. Philadelphia follows the pattern. The vast majority of black murders in the city -- 3 in 4 -- are from gunfire, according to police.