Oklahoma has more murders than New York.

As a nation, we’re wedded to the false narrative that progressive lawmakers coddle criminals and make blue cities like NYC and San Francisco dangerous than areas controlled by the GOP.

Except that the data point to the opposite: violent crime is higher in red states. The committed racists of Twitter like to point out that cities in red states are largely Black. But as Matthew Yglesias pointed out, not Oklahoma, which is almost entirely white, at 73 percent and 7 percent Black.

But a CDC study highlighted by Yglesias shows that Oklahoma has a much higher homicide rate than New York City .

What could it be? It’s all the fucking guns, sheesh. The guns, combined with higher rates of poverty and a tattered to nonexistent safety net, is the most probable reason red states have higher homicide rates than blue states.

But there’s another factor. Oklahoma has some of the most draconian sentencing laws in the country. Just look at marijuana trafficking: