AK47 assault rifle designer Kalashnikov dies at 94

Mikhail Kalashnikov the inventor of the AK47 assault rifle has died at the age of 94.

The iconic assault rifle used by many Warsaw Pact countries as well as many other renowned terrorist groups, and is often referred to as the gun of the 20th century.

I remember when I first started taking notice of World events and seeing this gun being carried around by boy soldiers in Africa. It is undoubtedly a great weapon, but it's association with rebel groups and terrorists will be what it will be eternally remembered for imo.

Still the man himself refused to take responsibility for the destruction caused by these groups and I guess he was correct in that. However, I'm sure many would disagree.

RIP Mikhail Kalashnikov

www.bbc.co.uk...

Well, talk about mixed feelings...and it's interesting on the perceptions. I guess they really vary? Where one sees it associated with African brush fire wars and terrorism (a fair connection too), I can never remove the AK-47 from the image of the Soviet Red Army and to a lesser extent, a client state in North Vietnam. There is a whole different thread in there on how differently that comes to people, eh?

I guess he's a man that absolutely made his mark on the world and without question though.

I happen to have a picture of him from another thread I just found as well.



An interesting man with a very controversial legacy.

R.I.P.

Cobaltic1978


I remember when I first started taking notice of World events and seeing this gun being carried around by boy soldiers in Africa. It is undoubtedly a great weapon, but it's association with rebel groups and terrorists will be what it will be eternally remembered for imo.

Still the man himself refused to take responsibility for the destruction caused by these groups and I guess he was correct in that. However, I'm sure many would disagree.

www.bbc.co.uk...

To many the AK represents freedom, to the poor and oppressed of the world the cheap easy to manufacture design meant a chance to fight.

Your image being shaped by the west is not the same the world over, hero and villain alike used the tool this man created for good and ill.

It was a cheap, reliable, and well made tool, but like all tools, its usefulness is determined by those who hold it.

Cobaltic1978
Mikhail Kalashnikov the inventor of the AK47 assault rifle has died at the age of 94.

The iconic assault rifle used by many Warsaw Pact countries as well as many other renowned terrorist groups, and is often referred to as the gun of the 20th century.

I remember when I first started taking notice of World events and seeing this gun being carried around by boy soldiers in Africa. It is undoubtedly a great weapon, but it's association with rebel groups and terrorists will be what it will be eternally remembered for imo.

Still the man himself refused to take responsibility for the destruction caused by these groups and I guess he was correct in that. However, I'm sure many would disagree.

RIP Mikhail Kalashnikov

www.bbc.co.uk...

Why should he "take responsibility" for anything? He was an engineer who designed a machine that solved many of the problems he saw in firearms when he was fighting the Nazis. Anything beyond that is the responsibility of the leaders who took his design and spread it around in order to spread Marxism.

I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

He also designed the SKS, another dependable rifle.

Soloprotocol
I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

Probably as many as Sam Colt.

So one could postulate that he was part in parcel to killing probably around a billion or more people.

intrepid

Soloprotocol
I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

Probably as many as Sam Colt.

edit on 23-12-2013 by intrepid because: (no reason given)

Or Colt...God made man but Colt made them equal.

reply to post by intrepid


I'm guessing even 'ol Sam Colt gets his numbers shot down on this one. The AK- literally holds a place in records and history of it's very own.

At the dawn of the Cold War, former Soviet soldier Mikhail Kalashnikov, 26, led a team in the design of a lightweight assault rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947. Now, 65 years later, some 100 million AK-47s have been produced—10 times the number of U.S. Army M16s.

Source

Quite a legacy eh? I wonder how he felt about it down deep?

Soloprotocol
I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

What about Henry Ford? Or those scrubby cave men who made knives from stone? The invention of medicines, doctors and hospitals also?
Firepiston

Wrabbit2000
reply to post by intrepid

 

I'm guessing even 'ol Sam Colt gets his numbers shot down on this one. The AK- literally holds a place in records and history of it's very own.

At the dawn of the Cold War, former Soviet soldier Mikhail Kalashnikov, 26, led a team in the design of a lightweight assault rifle, the Avtomat Kalashnikova 1947. Now, 65 years later, some 100 million AK-47s have been produced—10 times the number of U.S. Army M16s.

Source

Quite a legacy eh? I wonder how he felt about it down deep?

Some idiot actually asked him. He replied that he made a tool that functioned very well. That was his job as an engineer. Period. He didn't feel any responsibility for how other people used the tool he designed. He designed it to function well and will little maintenance and he succeeded in achieving that goal.

Also bear in mind that he designed his weapons while WWII was going on. He most likely had visions of his rifles killing Nazis, not being used by child soldiers in Uganda. The AK is known as a "terrorist" weapon because the Soviet government spread it far and wide to every terrorist and revolutionary they could find.

intrepid

Soloprotocol
I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

Probably as many as Sam Colt.

edit on 23-12-2013 by intrepid because: (no reason given)

Well... even tho I dont consider any of them "responsible" for any deaths... Intrepid, if you want to go that route, the AK during kalashnikov's lifetime killed more than anything or everything put together that sam colt invented during his lifetime - and we can use just the AK-47 for comparison.

You see... the Colt revolver conquered the north american wild west, the AK-47 smashed frontiers, toppled governments, it was the backbone of entire countries and at the same time supported entire revolutions... the AK-47 changed the world.

The most well equipped soldier of today in the world still respects the AK-47 as it was the first coming out of the factory in 1948. Its been 65 years and its still considered the most effective, robust and dependable, assault rifle in the world.

All during Kalashnikov's lifetime.

intrepid
Probably as many as [url=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sam_colt]Sam Colt.[/url

How many lives were saved by Sam Colt?

reply to post by Soloprotocol


Not many., considering a firearm cannot be respnsible for anything due to the fact its a object.

I own a Ak and a SKS,,,damn fine firearms. Drag that AK thru the mud, rain, snow, dirt, pick it up and fire. A beast of a gun. It was those behind the gun that do the killing. The gun is just a tool. RIP.

As many have said,you can't blame the man. He was a patriotic Soviet who designed a weapon to help protect the Soviet Union. The fact that it was/is the weapon of choice for many rebel groups is down to its cost to manufacture and it's reliability. It was manufactured in many countries, including China, so it's easy to see how it became so available.

Remember a gun doesn't discriminate, it's the most advanced animal on the planet that does that and this is who is responsible for the number of deaths facilitated by any weapon.

Soloprotocol
I wonder how many deaths his invention was responsible for...??

An inanimate object isn't "responsible" for anything. If I took my tooth brush, and jabbed my neighbor in the throat with it, how is the tooth brush responsible?

spartacus699
So one could postulate that he was part in parcel to killing probably around a billion or more people.

The same could be said for the inventor of gun powder if you want to get technical.

Was listening to NPR earlier.

A quote attributed to him;

"I made the weapon, the politician pulled the trigger."

Regardless, RIP.

Everyone deserves some final rest.