The man who invented the AK-47
In 1947, Mikhail Kalashnikov invented the AK-47 assault rifle. Due to the weapon’s simplicity and cheapness, it was adopted by military groups the world over. The Small Arms Survey claims that AK-47s “appear to have caused most of the 300,000 annual combat fatalities in the wars of the 1990s,” and “were the primary weapon for one or more sides in virtually all the 40-plus wars of the last decade.”
Here are some of Mikhail Kalashnikov’s words, from a recent interview.
“You see, with designing weapons, it is like a woman who bears children. For months she carries her baby and thinks about it. A designer does much the same thing with a prototype. I felt like a mother - always proud. It is a special feeling.
“The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics. I made it to protect the motherland. And then they spread the weapon [around the world] - not because I wanted them to. Not at my choice. Then it was like a genie out of the bottle and it began to walk all on its own and in directions I did not want.
“Man keeps inventing things all the time. Life is composed of different inventions. I did it for the sake of satisfaction at doing something. I did it because I happened to be where I was.
“Life can make you do many things, even kiss a man with a runny nose.”
- From Guardian Unlimited
June 26th, 2006
8:58 pm
Mikhail is also currently promoting his new Kalashnikov brand vodka. I’m sure the two go well together.
I wonder what other joys this man is going to bring to society.
June 26th, 2006
11:08 pm
He’s made me consider kissing a man with a runny nose.
June 26th, 2006
11:22 pm
Maybe it is his fault, but more likely it is the world to blame for approving and using the things in the first place. People can invent all kinds of wickedness. Some of the things they invent we confiscate, and some we make and buy.
I don’t think you get anywhere by blaming him specifically.
June 27th, 2006
9:57 am
I’m not blaming him for wars. I’m not blaming him for human nature. I’m blaming him for being a part of the complex.
We are all parts of the complex. The money in our bank accounts funds the manufacture of guns. The political systems we vote for (or maintain by our apathy) creates and bankrolls wars. In one way or another, we are all guilty.
But some people are more guilty than others. Someone who deliberately designs and produces an efficient human-killing machine - for whatever motives - surely contributes to the fund of human misery more than your average person. Surely they deserve to be blamed.
Most of the evils of the world seem to be caused by people saying “I’m only doing my job.”
June 27th, 2006
10:20 am
It is certainly not a nice or useful pastime or design project.
June 27th, 2006
1:58 pm
I’m not sure if we can eliminate motives when we determine whether to blame people. Why we do something, right or wrong, should affect judgement of it as much as its results. But its difficult to see with the AK-47, which democratised violence with its ease of manufacture, cheapness and efficiency, what positive effects were going to come of it.
June 27th, 2006
2:21 pm
Apart from the scary thought that the AK-47s the Soviet Union distributed around the Communist bloc and beyond were sent with the belief that these countries would be better off that way, and that it was for the best.
June 27th, 2006
8:41 pm
Yes, that’s true. The article I read said that the USSR distributed guns to anyone they thought would be useful to them, or anyone that could convince them they shared a Communist ideology.
I like that phrase ‘democratised violence.’ But is it really democratisation? Yes, AK-47s were poured in to Third World guerrillas and rebel groups. But that only means they became People With Better Guns, as opposed to the People With No Guns (hundreds of thousands of civilians) they ended up killing.
June 27th, 2006
8:49 pm
And surely it just isn’t good enough to say “I only made the gun, I didn’t fire it,” or “it isn’t my business what people do with it.” This is precisely the attitude that sustains the international arms trade. Arms manufacturers produce weapons in the full knowledge that people will be maimed and killed with them, but manage to sidestep all responsibility with exactly this sort of quasi-philosophical bullshit.
June 27th, 2006
8:50 pm
It’s enough to make me want to shoot a man.
June 28th, 2006
12:50 am
Ease of manufacture and the arms trade are what you both mention, and that’s what I mean. Millions of lunatics have ideas, it is when people start making and demanding them that the real mistake is made. Morality should have kicked in at the point where someone (everyone) looked over his drawing and shook their head. You can’t ask people not to come up with the ideas in the first place. They will, they do. It’s up to society to say no.
June 28th, 2006
9:23 am
I feel guilty.
July 4th, 2006
9:31 am
I don’t feel guilty. Then again, I’m one of those “filthy Americans”. You know, the ones that still have a legal Right to Keep and Bear Arms - and pocket knives too. A funny thing happens when you study the violent crime stats here in America closely. The only places where there is an increase in violent crime are the states where firearm ownership and right-to-carry is outlawed. Everywhere else, violent crime isn’t an issue.
Of course, I’m a dedicated, life-long target shooter, hunter, and gun owner for 35 years. What do I know?
July 4th, 2006
5:41 pm
I haven’t studied the statistics (or owned a gun for 35 years), but could you tell me why the US has such a large gun-owning population as well as a disproportionally large homicide rate? Do you really claim these two things are unrelated?
On a similar subject, why does the USA have so many homicides as well as such a high rate of capital punishment?
From this, I would suggest that maybe the threat of violent death - whether by handgun or by electric chair - doesn’t do much good in reducing crime statistics. In fact, it probably increases the homicide rate by craeting an atmosphere of distrust and paranoia, an arms race between police, criminals and “law-abiding” citizens, as well as the brutalising effect of “legal,” state-sanctioned killing.
July 4th, 2006
11:16 pm
Well, capital punishment certainly doesn’t work on suicide bombers.
A recent book, Freakanomics, argues that the recent drop in crime rate is not related to capital punishment. From statistical analysis, each person executed prevents 6 deaths. So it doesn’t really do much. It’s analysis also suggests that crime rate’s didn’t drop due to zero tolerance policing. Interesting read.
July 5th, 2006
11:46 am
Does this book suggest other reasons for them dropping?
July 5th, 2006
7:17 pm
His analysis says as follows: Well, crime rates in the US have dropped by 40%. 2% of that is due to a stronger economy (lower unemployment = less crimes for gain, a tiny bit), increased imprisonment (16%), capital punishment barely at all, more police (10%), not gun laws, 6% is due to less violence now being involved in the crack market, its not to do with an aging population.
The writer argues that the rest of the crime rate drop is to do with the legalisation of arbortion. The drop in crime rate seems to correlate with increasing abortion rates (with a lag of 18 years). States which introduced abortion laws later experienced a crime rate drop later than earlier introudction states. Its an interesting idea.