Change the hearts of these thugs

I recently saw on TV Mayor Daley talking about the carnage taking place on the South side and how gun ownership needs to be banned from all citizens. I get tired of hearing this argument - 99.9 percent of gun owners are responsible people who take the respect of the weapon very seriously.

Chicago has a very strict gun prohibition law in place right now. Is it working - of course not. All that is happening in Chicago is that respectable citizens are unarmed, and the thugs, miscreants, and lowlifes are armed to the teeth. If you take the guns away, they will turn to knives, baseball bats and tire irons. Therefore, rather than change the mode of weaponry, we need to change the mindset of these criminals.

We have to get to the young people at a very early stage. They have to be given the benefit of a whole family, the application of a strict education, the fear of God put into them, and their rights suppressed until they become responsible people. Why should responsible citizens lose their right to own just because of the fiasco going on on the South side?

Send in the National Guard if you have to, for the sake of the respectable people living there and for the sake of the little ones silently observing this whole sorry scene. But taking guns away isn't going to solve anything. Changing the hearts of these thugs who have no morals or respect for life will.

John Pagonis

Lombard