After three fans were shot or beaten over the weekend, the NFL has vowed to crack down on violence.

The mayors of San Francisco and Oakland have called for the end to such behavior.

They might as well call for the return of $1-a-gallon gas. There is only one simple, inarguable way to cut down on rowdiness.

Ban alcohol.

If you think the NFL is going there, youâ€™ve obviously been drinking.

The league has no real interest in going to an AA meeting and saying, â€œMy name is the NFL and Iâ€™m an addict.â€ History proves it is more interested in making cosmetic changes that really change nothing.

The denial continued after Saturday nightâ€™s Raiders-49ers game. Two men were shot and another was beaten unconscious in a bathroom.

â€œWe are working to assist the San Francisco Police Department in any way possible to understand how and why this happened,â€ 49ers coach Jim Harbaugh said.

Investigators havenâ€™t yet said alcohol played a role, but would you bet against it? Even if the suspects are all devout Mormons, there is no question alcohol is the leading generator of fan rowdiness at all sports events.

Itâ€™s pointless to demand an end to alcohol sales at games. For one thing, the majority of fans can handle their booze. For another, the NFL recently signed a $1.2 billion sponsorship deal with Anheuser-Busch.

The NFL will give up booze when they pry Roger Goodellâ€™s cold, dead fingers off a 20-ounce Budweiser sold for $8.50 at the nearest concession stand.

But is it too much to ask the league to sober up a little?

â€œThese games are family events,â€ read the mayoral proclamation, â€œand the types of images we witnessed last night have no place in our arenas.â€

Family events? Sure, if your family is the local Hellâ€™s Angels chapter.

You donâ€™t need gunshot wounds to know NFL games long ago stopped being family-friendly. The Patriots disappeared from Monday Night Football in the 1970s after Foxborough, Mass., tired of the insanity that came with night games.

One enchanted evening saw 60 arrests, 100 evictions and 35 people taken to the hospital. A cop was assaulted and had his gun stolen.

One fan urinated on a paramedic working on a heart attack victim. A drunken driver killed a man outside the stadium.

It was Schaefer Stadium, of course. As in Schaefer beer.

Remember the 1995 game at Giants Stadium when 175 people were ejected in the worldâ€™s largest snowball fight?

Ten years later, the stadium banned alcohol for the Jetsâ€™ final game. That came after two people were stabbed the game earlier.

In 2007, there was a similar last-game ban. This one came after hundreds of men blocked the Gate D ramps and chanted for women to bare their breasts.

They threw plastic beer bottles at women who didnâ€™t cooperate.

Not every NFL game turns into a bachelor party, of course. But every game has too many booze-fueled incidents.

The leagueâ€™s response has been a Fan Code of Conduct, which apparently the assailant in San Francisco forgot to sign. It also limits tailgating to 3-1/2 hours before games, cuts off alcohol sales after the third quarter and limits fans to two alcoholic drinks per purchase.

In other words, come back in five minutes and weâ€™ll gladly sell you another 40 ounces of Bud for $17.

Prohibition didnâ€™t work in the 1920s, and it wouldnâ€™t fare much better now. But there are more substantive steps to enforce responsible drinking.

If nothing else, take some of that $1.2 billion in Anheuser-Busch money and hire a lot more real police to patrol the stands. Have fans get their hands stamped after their beer purchases.

No one thing will solve the problem. But anything is better than issuing proclamations of shock and disgust.

Weâ€™ve heard plenty of those over the years. Then we hear gunfire, and league officials wonder how and why these things happen.

They should spend a game in the stands, or hang out around Gate D. The answer would hit them like a plastic bottle of beer.