Kalashnikov turns 90

rolfness

when you have to absolutely positively kill every living motherfucker in the room accept no substitutes..

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8353800.stm

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8353427.stm

crazyfingers

Although i do not approve of the millions he's helped kill, i was playing left 4 dead 2 the other day and the AK 47 is loads of fun. I have mixed feelings about this dude.

sampson

in russia, *insert kalashnikov russian reversal here*

t4paN

Man I remember seeing a news bulletin about some previous birthday quite some time ago, and this guy is poor as fuck, lives on wellfare or something. IMO he should get like a general's pension or something, he created the most awesome rifle ever.

dejawolf

"I'm proud of my invention, but I'm sad that it is used by terrorists," he said on a visit to Germany, adding: "I would prefer to have invented a machine that people could use and that would help farmers with their work - for example a lawnmower."

Ryno

After what the German army did to the USSR at the beginning of WW2, I really can't fault the guy for trying to give Russian troops a better weapon. At the time that he began developing the AK, he probably considered it a matter of survival for his people. There's no way he could have predicted that every murderous warlord, thug, and oppressive military regime in the world would end up using his invention. It really does sound like he had intended it to be used to "defend the motherland".

Mark Dygert

Ryno makes a good point. Also where did they all come from and why are they so easy to get? It seems like there must be factories all over pumping these out like candy canes at Christmas? Maybe we shouldn't send this shipment off to Somalia? Meh who knows the warlords probably have their own factories...

At what point are the people pulling the triggers stop being responsible for their actions? If they didn't pick up a AK they would find something else.

EarthQuake

The AK has such widespread use because it is very reliable, and very very cheap to manufacture. There are many many variants and many countries that produce rifles based on it. Also, russia built a shitton of them during the cold war as well.

The AK-47 was one of the first true assault rifles and, due to its durability, low production cost and ease of use, the weapon and its numerous variants remain the most widely used assault rifles in the world — so much so that more AK-type rifles have been produced than all other assault rifles combined.[2][3] It was also used by the majority of the member states of the former Warsaw Pact. The AK-47 was also used as a basis for the development of many other types of individual and crew-served firearms.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AK-47

Its simply a matter of numbers, if the m16 was the most abundant weapon ever created, you can be damn sure to see some terrorists using that as well..... you know, if it worked in the desert

rawkstar

i'm just saying:



cheers