I THINK … Mayor Daley should be made to to write the Second Amendment on a blackboard 100 times, so he gets it.

Chicago Mayor Richard Daley is again showing that the “Chicago Way” is his way only. He will not be dissuaded from the imposition of his edicts by the law, the Supreme Court, the will of the people, American traditions, the U.S. Constitution or common sense.

Following the rejection of the Chicago gun ban on Constitutional grounds, Daley has forced the passage of a series of Draconian regulations that effectively make gun ownership in Chicago a meaningless right. In all probability, most of the new law will be stricken again by the Supreme Court, but only after years of meandering through lower court decisions.

In what can only be described as a fit of civic petulance worthy of any despot, Daley will cause Chicago to endure years of uncertainty, and millions of dollars in legal fees – which the Mayor will gladly dole out to his lawyer friends. In fact, this law is just another form of creative patronage.

It is also another example of Daley’s willingness to add more needless costs on the already reeling city. It should not go without notice that Hizzoner does not mind spending lavishly in pursuit of his personal agenda, even as funding for critical services is evaporating.

And to the central issue, what has all his gun control efforts accomplished? The gang bangers and the crooks remain immune to the Mayor’s laws, killing hundreds of his constituents each year. Virtually ever week some teenager is gunned down by “accident” – the victim of misidentification or a stray round.

In the name of public safety, Daley disarms the innocent for the benefit of the criminals. Perhaps crime control should have priority over gun control. Just maybe, with an armed public, we would have more dead crooks than vulnerable victims.

If a man breaks into a home to rape a woman, and she blows him to his eternal judgment, it seems to me society is the beneficiary. At least it takes some pressure of the judicial docket. I am all for making crime a high risk business.

The Mayor creates criminals out of people who are not – and in the process he sends the innocent to jail while those who commit real crimes roam the streets.

Of course, this makes no difference to the rubber stamp Chicago City Council, which passed his hand scribbled ordinance without so much as a public hearing. In a move a unfathomable hypocrisy, the good alderpersons of Chicago continue to exempt themselves from Daley’s gun restrictions. As part of the government elite, their safety is paramount – and how could Daley get their votes if he did not accede to the worthiness of their exception.

Maybe there was time that the experiment in gun control was warranted as an untested theory. But, after the generational failure of feel good gun laws, Daley loses the benefit of the doubt. He is just wrong in this.