HARTFORD, Connecticut - August 14, 2008 - A 9:00 p.m. curfew on teens under the age of 18 in the City of Hartford begins tonight, but with miles of streets to cover many wonder how that curfew will be enforced.

News Channel 8's Bob Wilson asked 12-year-old Kamau Ashton of Hartford how he feels about the impending curfew.

"Do you see or hear people get shot?"

"Yes," Ashton said.

"What do you think about that?"

"I don't like it because I worry about sitting outside on my porch or I'm walking to the store, I get shot. That's what I think."

Ashton and 11-year-old Kaily Smith are cousins. They live just blocks from where other kids their age have been shot. They say they are thankful for the curfew, not because it will keep them off the streets - they are already indoors by 9:00 p.m. - but because it will hopefully keep troublemakers away and stop the shootings.

Just this past weekend, 11 people were shot.

Smith also worries about "drive-bys and stuff like that, because people are crazy these days. They are on vacation and they don't think about anything."

Lorin Washington of Hartford thinks the curfew will not make that big of a difference. "It will slow things down, but I don't think it will stop anything."

After 9:00 p.m. tonight officers will be looking for teens loitering. The first time they're stopped they'll get a written warning and be taken home.

The second time, they'll be charged with a misdemeanor and again be brought home.

Originally, the mayor said in a press conference that any kids caught violating the curfew will be taken to a detention center where they will have to be picked up by their parents. He has since backed off of this proposal and some parents say it's too bad.

"That's where the strength of the curfew [is]," Mike Fothergill of Hartford said. "Not only getting kids off the street but getting the parents involved. Forcing the parents to get involved."

Ed. Note:  So now we are supposed to be convinced that it is a good thing to surrender our God-given rights by the words of 11-year-old and 12-year-old children?  When is enough, enough?