LYNN – Crime decreased for the second year in a row last year, with overall crime falling 2 percent in 2013 compared with 2012, according to year-end police statistics.Gun crimes and the number of heroin overdoses, however, increased dramatically in 2013, and the crime rate fell less than it had in the previous year.”(The decrease) is good,” Lynn Police Chief Kevin Coppinger said in interviews Tuesday and Wednesday. “Obviously, we’d like to see it better than that, but it’s heading in the right direction and we’re going to continue dedicating resources to it.”Police annually report statistics for six major crimes: murder, rape, robbery, assault, burglary and larceny. Statistics for robberies, assaults, burglaries and larcenies are further subdivided into categories such as simple assaults and commercial versus residential burglaries.The number of recorded rapes, assaults and burglaries all decreased from 2012 to 2013, falling by 19 percent, 2 percent, and 14 percent, respectively.The numbers of murders, robberies, and larcenies all increased, however. The number of murders rose from two to three, increasing by 50 percent. The number of robberies increased 10 percent from 175 incidents in 2012 to 192 in 2013, and the number of larcenies increased 2 percent to 1,703 incidents reported in 2013.Coppinger said any increase in crime – and particularly crimes against persons – was troubling.But he identified two increases this year as being especially concerning: the increase in the number of incidents involving guns and the increasing number of heroin overdoses.GunsPolice track statistics of three crimes involving firearms, and all three increased this year.Both commercial robberies involving a firearm and street robberies involving a firearm increased in 2013, by 73 percent (from 11 incidents in 2012 to 19 incidents in 2013) and 21 percent (33 to 40 incidents), respectively.This reversed the decline between 2011 and 2012 in commercial and residential robberies involving a firearm.Police also recorded a 30-percent increase in the number of assaults involving a firearm, which increased from 43 to 56 incidents reported in 2012 to 2013.”There are more guns on the street, not just in Lynn but it’s society,” Coppinger said. He noted the increase in fatal shootings in Boston this January. “Guns are on the rise.”The city recorded 161 total firearms incidents in 2013, the highest number of incidents in five years. Lynn Police recovered 50 guns last year, also a five-year record.2014 has not started quietly, either, as two people were shot in two incidents on New Year’s Day. The city recorded its first murder in 2014 on Jan. 12 when Hery Aquino, 29, was fatally shot on Curwin Circle. Jacquan McKenzie, 18, of Lynn, was held on $50,000 bail on gun charges and a trespassing charge after police said they captured McKenzie fleeing the scene with a weapon.Coppinger said “there is a relationship among the incidents” and the investigations remain ongoing.He cited a few reasons why police believe the firearms-related numbers have started to increase.He said several of the individuals locked up after operations targeting gangs in 2008 have begun to be released.”Are they getting back to old positions in gangs, are there turf wars over who’s running the show?” Coppinger postulated. “Hopefully we don’t see increases in these numbers as we go forward, we need to be as proactive as possible to prevent that.”Coppinger also cited the varying laws among New England states governing gun sales.”Massachusetts has great gun laws, surrounding states don’t,” Coppinger said. He handed over an article about a Maine man who sold 100 guns to a Lynn felon through a classified ad. Maine law allows for the private sale of guns where there will be no criminal background check run on the buyer and no records kept of the sale, the article states.Coppinger also pointed to the heroin increases.”Guns and drugs have traditionally gone together,” Coppinger said. “If you reduce th