The 1 City Where Gun Violence Could Kill You (and 9 Other Cities You Might Want to Avoid)

It’s sad to say, but this has become routine. Too often an act of gun violence shakes our country to its core. Given the recent tragic events in Florida (and before that in Las Vegas, Charleston, San Bernardino, Aurora, Fort Hood, and more), gun control in the United States is once again a hot topic of debate.

Advocates for gun control will point to the litany of mass shootings in the United States every year. The Gun Violence Archive notes there have been almost 300 mass shootings with three months to go in 2017. Gun rights activists will point to the Constitutionally protected right to bear arms. And President Donald Trump will likely take to Twitter to register his disgust. The two sides will bicker for a while before the conversation eventually dies down, and the scenario will repeat itself the next time there is a horrific tragedy.

As terrible as mass shootings are, gun deaths in the form of homicide are not among the top 10 killers in the United States. Heart disease and cancer alone accounted for nearly half of all deaths in 2015, according to data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Overall crime rates are trending down, but data from the Unified Crime Reports saw an uptick in both the number of murders and murders per 100,000 people in 2016. Some areas of the country have it worse than others when it comes to gun violence. Using Census population data and a preliminary analysis of 2017 crime statistics by the Brennan Center for Justice, we calculated the cities with the highest murder rates to help indicate where you are more likely to die from gun violence. The following are the 10 cities where you’re most likely to die from gun violence, including one that might be a bit of a surprise.

First things first

The number of murders and murder rates per capita take into account all forms of homicide. But the CDC estimates close to 70% of all homicides are gun homicides. So though not every homicidal death is chalked up to firearms, the majority are. The figures included don’t factor in gun-related suicides.

Some major cities you might expect to see are not on this list, including New York, Los Angeles, and Phoenix. They already have a sizable number of homicides in 2017, but the number of murders and murder rates per capita are down compared to 2016. And many of the cities on this list already have more murders than 2016, a higher number of murders per capita, or both.