2014 Highest Murder Rate in the Country: Detroit 43.4 Per 100,000

The Daily Beast Last year, America’s big cities continued the slow, but steady decline in murders. Though not at the breakneck pace we saw last year, the nation’s largest cities continued to witness steady declines in both total murders and murder rates in 2014. Data provided by police departments in the 10 cities with the highest number of murders in 2013 shows that six out of 10 saw a significant drops in both total murders and murder rates in 2014. Baltimore and Detroit led the pack with the sharpest declines over last year, but a look at an impressive big picture shows that Los Angeles and New York have managed to cut murders in their city by roughly half. Not every mayor will be celebrating, however—Philadelphia couldn’t make a dent in its homicides this year, and both Indianapolis and Houston saw some significant increases. I couldn't help but notice that for most of the cities the decline is next to nothing. I'd say it's easily attributable to the ever-increasing emergency services provided to victims of shootings. Perhaps a better indicator is shootings rather than murders. One could surmise that with fewer people owning guns and the murder rate remaining about the same (in some cases it actually increased), things are not improving as the gun rights fanatics keep saying.