WASHINGTON -- Odessa, Texas, is the nation's most dangerous city -- barely beating out Miami for the title, the National Coalition to Ban Handguns reports.
According to a survey, four Texas cities were among the 10 most dangerous in country in 1982 and eight Texas cities were ranked in the top 25.
The coalition, analyzing the FBI Uniform Crime Report for 1982 released Sunday, said Odessa 'narrowly beat out perennial champion Miami for the title of most dangerous metropolitan area with 29.8 homicides per 100,000 residents.'
The coalition said Miami homicides dropped from 34.5 murders per 100,000 in 1981 to 29.7 in 1982. Odessa jumped from 22.5 per 100,000 residents in 1981 to the top of the list in 1982.
The coalition credited the drop in Miami crime with a 40 percent decrease of handgun sales in city during the year.
'Gun-loving Alaska was the most lethal state with 18.5 homicides per 100,000, with Texas and Louisiana in a tie for second at 16.0,' the report said.
It said the national murder rate was 9.1 per 100,000.
The coalition said 9,035 Americans were killed with handguns in 1982 -- about 43 percent of the 21,012 homicides recorded during the year.
'It's always good news when fewer Americans are dying by violence, but remember that this 'improvement' is a case of going from the horrendous to the merely horrible,' said Michael Beard, president of the coalition.
Beard said his group had determined from unpublished FBI statistics that only 200 criminals were killed by handgun-owning civilians.
'Stacked against 9,000 handgun murders, 12,000 suicides and 800 fatal accidents, you don't have much justification for allowing handgun toting to continue,' he said.
American cities with the highest number of homicides per 100,000 residents were: 1. Odessa, Texas, 29.8 2. Miami, 29.7 3. Houston, 28.2 4. New Orleans, 25.3 5. Longview-Marshall, Texas, 21.6 6. Jackson, Miss., 20.3 7. Las Vegas, 19.8 8. Stockton, Calif., 19.5 9. New York, 19.1
10. San Antonio, Texas, 18.
