TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- The rate of serious crimes in Florida edged up in 2007 after years of declines, with a particularly alarming increase in the number of crimes involving guns.

The overall crime rate -- factoring in population growth -- was up 1.4 percent in 2007, over where it was in 2006, according to data released by the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.

But for crimes in which guns were used, the numbers were much larger.

Murders involving guns went up 11.5 percent last year and armed robberies with guns increased by 25 percent, from about 14,300 in 2006 to just under 18,000 last year.

Aggravated assaults with firearms also went up, by 6.5 percent.

Even with the slight increase, overall crime in Florida last year was still far below where it was in the 1980s and 1990s. The crime rate last year was 35 percent lower than it was a decade ago.

While it was the first year in more than a decade that the overall crime rate has gone up, violent crimes have been creeping up in Florida for a couple years. In 2007, violent crime increased by just under 2 percent, following a 3 percent increase the year before.

Rising increases in violent crime here mirror a similar uptick nationwide. Violent crime around the country was up in 2005 and 2006 after declining every year since 1991.

State officials didn't offer any theories about why crime is on the upswing. For years, FDLE and former Gov. Jeb Bush used to hold news conferences and announce declines in the statewide crime rate with fanfare and assertions that get-tough-on-crime laws were behind the decreases.

On Friday, the statistics were released quietly.

Gov. Charlie Crist didn't hold a news conference and wasn't available for comment.

He did release a statement with the FDLE statistics.

"Making our neighborhoods and communities safe for Floridians and their families is the first priority of government," Crist said. "Our state is committed to putting in place tools and technologies that both prevent and deter criminal activity."

One of Crist's top priorities during his first year in office was getting tough on violent criminals. He helped pass a law aimed at keeping violent probation violators behind bars, but it's only been in effect a short time.

Criminologists have said for years that at least some of what drives crime is the economy, and that while the economy was going strong, crime was low. With an economic downturn, some have predicted a rise in crime.

A public policy think tank, the Urban Institute, recently posited that iPods -- yes, iPods -- may be partly behind the national increase in people being robbed.

Local police in various communities have anecdotally reported waves of people being robbed for their iPod personal music players, although the theory is far from proven.

One bit of good news came out: forcible sex offenses dropped 3.1 percent in Florida last year. But even there, the jump in gun usage was noticeable too. Forcible rapes in which a gun was used went up more than 20 percent, but the numbers of those crimes was low, so the percentage appears high. The actual number of gun forcible rapes increased by 27 statewide, from 131 to 158.

Most thefts went up, with the biggest increases including a 29 percent jump in purse snatching and a 14 percent increase in shoplifting.

Among the statistics released by the FDLE Friday were:

• Overall murders were up 6.5 percent
• While gun murders increased by 11.5 percent, murders in which a knife was used dropped by 24 percent
• Overall robberies went up 11.7 percent
• Overall, aggravated assaults were down 1.7 percent
• Burglaries went up 6.3 percent
• The actual number of tracked crimes increased 3.2 percent, but population increased as well. When population was factored in, the crime rate went up 1.4 percent