Murder, murder, who did the murder?

So basically this is a post that really is only pretending to be about gun control.  It's actually just a fun look at statistics headlined by a funny meme.  So I saw this post about the 50 most violent cities in the world according to the Mexico Citizens Council For Public Security, and if anyone knows about violent crime, they certainly fit the bill.  They don't let themselves off the hook, mind you- 5 Mexican cities of over 100,000 population make the list based on murders per 100,000 population, including #4 Acapulco (your tourist destination) at 104+.  And they aren't the only touristy spot- Kingston, Jamaica, was 33rd, though with a fraction of the murders at 33 per.

However, one might make a case that every four years, the greatest tourist attraction is the Olympic Games, and this year, they are in Brazil.

Guess what?  Brazil took TWENTY-ONE of the 50 spots, from #48 Macapa to #12 Fortaleza.  But not Rio, which I guess counts for something.

Did the US of A make the chart?  Sure, and right where you'd expect:  St Louis (15th), Baltimore (19th), Detroit (28th), and New Orleans (32nd).  Which brought me to a question- which I'll cover in a minute.

Number one was Caracas, Venezuela, at almost 120 per- one of 8 Venezuelan towns on the list.  Honduras (and you are seeing the Latin American theme here) had San Pedro Sula at 2 and Distrito Central at 6; San Salvador made #3, Venezuela put Maturin (5) and Valencia (7) in the top ten.  Columbia, with 3 overall, put Palmeira (8) and Cali (10) in the top ten.  South Africa helped the US and Jamaica keep things from an all-Latino event, with Capetown at #9 the highest of its 4 members of the list.  Altogether, 41 of 50 were Latin American cities.


Now the article went on from there to use FBI data from January to June of last year to make a list of the most violent cities in 43 states, but that's just lazy number running.  I have something better for you, gleaned from the same list.  There are, according to that data, 24 cities in the US- with that 100,00 minimum- that topped 30 murders for that 6-month period.  I cross reffed that info with the Brady Center's list of the ten states with the toughest gun control laws, just for shits and giggles.  And here's the top ten murdering cities from Jan-Jun 2015:

10- Dallas, TX.  The lightweight of the group at 69 murders.

8 (tie)- St. Louis, MO.  Not surprising that the home of Ferguson and East St Louis should be on the list. 92 was their count.

8 (tie)-  New Orleans, LA.  Hmm, Mexico thinks their fourth, the FBI says eighth.

7- Detroit, MI.  And that gives us three of the four that Mexico listed.  107 for the Murder Motor City.

6- Philadelphia, PA- and Pennsylvania has the tenth toughest gun laws.  Tell that to the 115 that became victims.

5- Los Angeles, CA.  And with California having the TOUGHEST gun laws, LA still managed to dwarf the rest of the state at 128 murders.

3 (tie)- The third place tie is funny because the also had such a jump from the first six months of 2014, that the DIFFERENCE in their years would have EACH made 14th on the list!

One is Houston, who rose a whopping 44 deaths to land at 144.

The other- again not surprising to all you Black Lives Matter fans- is Baltimore, MD, which gained 45 over the same time period in 2014.  And that is with Maryland ranking 7th on the Brady list!

2- New York City, NY.  With the fourth toughest gun laws in the country, the Big Apple racked up 164 murders.  Just think if they had Indiana's laws, right?

And number one, with 207 murders and the 9th-toughest gun laws?  Chicago, Il.  I didn't catch that gasp, there.

So the #s 1, 4, 7, 9, and 10 toughest gun law states had cities in the top ten of murders.  #2 New Jersey had Newark at #15; the Massachusetts data strangely had no mention of Boston, for reasons I couldn't find* (Come to think of it, I didn't see Oakland in the California list), and the remaining tough states were pretty self-explanatory:  Connecticut (5), Hawaii (6), and Rhode Island (8).  They also breezed past Washington, DC, due to not being IN a state, apparently;  I learned that they hit 100 murders on August 22.

(* After the fact, I dug up Boston and found they racked up 10 in the time period.  Oakland had 44.  Why these guys got a break, I'm not sure.)

Fort Wayne?  FBI had us listed at 12 for the time period, which means the thugs really kicked it in the butt in the second half of the year, since we ended up with 30.

One more tidbit of data for the Black Lives Matter people- out of the US cities with the largest by number black populations- all on them were in the murder top ten list I gave with the exceptions of Washington DC (for the reasons previously discussed), and Memphis TN, who just missed with 64 murders.