BELLEVUE, WA – The Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms today are transmitting to each of the Republican and Democratic presidential candidates the “2008 Presidential Gun Rights Pledge.”

In a letter to the candidates, SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb and CCRKBA Executive Director Mark A. Taff note, “It is not enough for a candidate for this nation’s highest political office to merely mouth ‘support’ for the Second Amendment. Whoever occupies the presidency must be someone who holds the Second Amendment to be as important to individual liberty as all the other tenets of our Bill of Rights.”

By Tim Inwood

In August of 2007 I wrote about the July 23rd home invasion that befell the family of Dr. William Petit.

It is a sort of thing that happens too often in the United States: criminals, who have been paroled then repeatedly go back to a violent life of crime, plus another family lulled into a false sense of security thinking the police will be there to protect them in their “good neighborhood”. As usual, the end result is
tragic. (For the details, I hope you will go back and read the previous article.)

The reason why I am writing about this incident again is the revelation from the Cheshire, CT Police Department that after setting up a perimeter around the Petit home, the police stood by for over 25 minutes without acting.

During this time, we know that Jennifer Petit was strangled to death. The daughters, who were tied to their beds, were burned alive. I am not telling you this to second-guess the police or to criticize their actions. I am sure they viewed this as a hostage
situation and felt they needed to figure out a way to communicate with the thugs holding the family before acting. The reason I am telling you this story is to remind you that the first line in your defense is you. To leave it to others is pure folly.