Well, you'd have to show that murder rates correlate with rates for other crime. But more important is digging into the thorny issue of what — and who — defines "crime". Because there are a ton of aspects to it: what laws are on the books, what laws are actually enforced, what various special interest groups want to legislate, what people analyzing data choose to include.

For example, as of 2017 feeding pigeons was a misdemeanor in Las Vegas [1]. That will show up in crime data, but you'd be hard-pressed to convince me that it correlates with the murder rate. And if you wanted me to compile a report on crime data, I'd probably ignore it altogether (which is essentially what people are doing when they refer to "violent crime" states).

For a slightly more charged example, let's say property owners push a law against sleeping in public. If they succeed and police don't enforce it, are they "gaming" the metrics? What if most other locals actually oppose the law?

[1] https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-illegal-pigeon-vegas-20...