Your momma was correct: Nothing good happens long after midnight, so you’d be wise to go to bed.

Unfortunately, our mommas don’t make the laws around here. Our mommas also don’t generally have badges and guns to enforce common sense, either.

If they did, it’s possible that some of the senseless violence that rears its head in Natchez would stop or at least be lessened.

In the latest ridiculous violence, a man was stabbed in the wee hours of Sunday morning in downtown Natchez.

The bloody incident occurred right in the heart of downtown, just outside a Main Street bar, not in some back alley of an obscure or sketchy neighborhood.

The city spends hundreds of thousands of dollars each year to market, spruce up and lure tourists and conventioneers to Natchez.

Why is it, then, that we cannot stop drunks from becoming rowdy and hurting one another right in the heart of the city?

Just a few years ago, a European visitor was killed in the same area when he was either pushed or fell to the ground striking his head.

One would think such a tragedy would shock the city into changing its ways, either closing bars earlier, or providing more law enforcement in the area to arrest the thugs causing the problems.

But nothing has changed so far. How many more knives have to be pulled, and how much more blood has to be spilt onto Main Street before the city wakes up and takes action?

If Natchez doesn’t take a firm line on such violence — and quickly — it may become difficult or impossible to stop in the near future.