I found the (Aug. 16) letter by George A. Batina quite disturbing, not that he argues for Second Amendment gun rights, but how he proposes to use them. He says that “had otherwise ‘law-abiding’ citizens of” Germany, Russia and other predatory countries “taken it upon themselves to eliminate Stalin,” Hitler, and other leaders, “millions of lives might have been saved.” This may be true but he overlooks the matter of timing.

Hitler came to power legally when he was appointed chancellor in 1934. He talked about Germans being the “master race” but the extent to which he was responsible for mass killings did not become evident until Allied soldiers came upon the gas chambers in Eastern Germany late in World War II. We knew that Nazi Germany had concentration camps, but not that some of them were used for group executions. For a private citizen to save millions of lives he would have to know what the leader would be doing years ahead of time. Otherwise it is just a case of assassination of a leader by an individual with a gun.

Robert Forman

Deer Park