Chicago has surpassed New York as the murder capital of the United States, according to the FBI, registering as much as 500 homicides a year in a 2012 survey, despite having fewer residents than the Big Apple. In a crime statistics that was released on Monday, September 16, the amount of homicides in Chicago rose to 500 from its former 431 record in 2011. New York, on the other hand had only 419 murders in 2012, dropping from a previous count of 515 back in 2011.

Chicago has had more murders than Los Angeles, with 299 murders.

However one would think that New York and Chicago are two cities to stay away from, neither of them are apparently as dangerous as Flint, Michigan, where statistics show that one in every 1,613 citizens will most likely be a murder victim, with a total of 63 murders reported among the 101, 558 residents in 2012.

69% of all homicides committed across the United States in 2012 involved the use of a gun, calling to attention the recent controversies surrounding lax gun laws.

There has also been a 0.7 percent rise in violent crimes across the U.S., a slight increase after a decade of decline.

Violent crime has fallen in the South (identified as the former confederate states: Delaware, Maryland, West Virginia, Kentucky, and Oklahoma).

Crime has dropped in the Northeast (New England, New York, Pennsylvania, and New Jersey) by 1.2 percent.

So far this year, 2013, at least 308 people have already been murdered in Chicago.

Overall violent crime, in which homicides and aggravated assaults feature heavily, rose less than 1% in 2012.

However, as a silver lining, the statistics indicate that the number of burglaries have declined by 3.7 percent last year, and property crimes continuously descending in its tenth year, by 0.9 percent.