Successors to Hitler

As part of a public-speaking contest at Westlake elementary school, a fifth-grader gave a first-person oral report on an historical figure, Hitler, and all hell broke loose.

What a travesty--and also, tragedy. Hitler was one of the all-time thugs of history. Modern wanna-bes carefully misdirect attention to the man, rather than to his actions.

While you keep watch for the heel click, the outstretched arm and the Sieg heil chorus, his minions are consolidating the government structure that permitted the Holocaust: 1, the people must be disarmed; 2, the police power must be strengthened and concentrated, and 3, the first conditions must be achieved with the consent of the people.

Hitler did all three. The symbols he used were unique to German culture, and thus irrelevant to us today. His modern counterparts use different symbols and different rhetoric to achieve the same goals.

Wittingly or unwittingly, the gun-phobes are doing the work of modern-day Hitlers. And so, also, are those who call for increased power and autonomy for the police. The political left and the political right are cooperating to destroy half of the Bill of Rights in a gutless and futile attempt to buy a little temporary security.

The lesson of the Holocaust is clear: A Jew with a gun cannot be gassed. A decent and honorable government has nothing to fear from an armed citizenry, but tyrants prefer submissive victims.

WILLIAM O. FELSMAN, Woodland Hills