Roundup: Homicide on rise in major American cities

After years of decline in violent crimes, several major U.S. cities have experienced a spike in homicides since the start of the year, data from metropolitan police departments across the country showed.

Data indicated homicides were up 105 percent in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, by July 8 over the same period last year, while murders in St. Louis, Missouri, where the death of an unarmed young African-American last summer triggered widespread rioting and protest against police brutality across the country, were up 60 percent as of early July.

In other major cities across the United States, shootings and other cases of violent felony also surged in the first half of the year. Homicides in Dallas, Texas, were up 28 percent as of June 30. New Orleans, Louisiana, also witnessed an increase in homicides by 36 percent; in New York and Washington, D.C., rate of murder cases was up 11 percent and 18 percent, respectively.

Though national figures for the first half of 2015 won't be released till next year, it is less likely for the period to repeat a crime decline which had lasted for more than a decade, observers say.

Criminologists believe the drastic increase in homicides comes after years of drops in violent crimes in major cities nationwide, noting that reasons behind the surge is closely related to specific situation in different cities.

However, high rate of gun ownership is believed to play a role in the surge of homicides, as data show that homicides by gun are the most common type of deliberate and unlawful killings in the country.

According to a study by the journal Injury Prevention released last month, about 29 percent of Americans said they owned at least one gun of the estimated 300 million firearms in private hands in the United States. The study also said that states with higher rates of gun ownership, a result of lax gun-control policies, were subject to higher rates of gun death.

The study came at a time when debates over tightening gun control policies in the country were reignited after the Charleston church massacre happening on June 17 in South Carolina claimed nine African-American lives.

In a sharp speech after the incident, U.S. President Barack Obama urged Americans to reflect on the scenario that rampant gun violence only happens in the United States.

"This type of mass violence does not happen in other advanced countries. It doesn't happen in other places with this kind of frequency," said Obama in the latest of his 15 speeches about mass shooting in his presidency.

Following the 2012 school shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, which claimed 28 lives -- including 20 children -- the Obama administration initiated but failed to push stronger gun control laws.

The laws, whose sections included expanded background checks and bans on assault weapons, have been stymied in Congress after staunch opposition from Republican lawmakers and gun-rights groups. Endite