[Aguila Blanca]

A very long time ago, my brother and his first wife lived in Cheshire, Connecticut, very near to where the Petit murders took place, so I followed the case closely from the time it took place. There was never any mention of firearms, and given the typical outlook of the town and the area, I'm guessing (pure conjecture, I admit) that the Petit family would never have considered owning a firearm, for any reason -- at least, not before the event.

One thing I find puzzling: I am VERY certain that, back at the time the incident was fresh in the news, I read at least one article that reported the Petits had a home alarm system that they routinely did NOT activate, because they lived in a "safe" neighborhood. I have since searched diligently for any confirmation or follow-up of that, and I have found exactly nothing. But -- Cheshire, Connecticut, is an up-scale suburb of New Haven, and the Petit house was in an up-scale subdivision within an up-scale town. I very much doubt that there are any houses in that subdivision that were NOT built with alarm systems as part of the original construction.

The lesson to be learned, IMHO, is simply to never assume that "It can't happen here."

Sadly, the world has changed. I'm a senior citizen. Where I grew up, we never locked the doors at night, and in the summer we left the front door open so the breeze could blow through the screen door. We never locked the cars when parked in the driveway.

In more recent years, my childhood hometown has seen armed home invasions, hostage situations, and numerous incidents of cars being stolen out of locked garages. The population of the town hasn't increased all that much, but the size of the police force has increased from a chief and two patrol officers to something like 30 or 35 full-time officers.

Dorothy was right -- we're not in Kansas any more.