Mikhail Kalashnikov, assault rifle inventor, dies at 94

[fightingirish]

The inventor of the Kalashnikov assault rifle, Mikhail Kalashnikov, has died aged 94, Russian TV reports.


The automatic rifle he designed became one of the world's most familiar and widely used weapons.


Its comparative simplicity made it cheap to manufacture, as well as reliable and easy to maintain.


Although honoured by the state, Kalashnikov made little money from his gun. He once said he would have been better off designing a lawn mowe.

Link: BBC News - Obituary: Mikhail Kalashnikov

 

[Justo Miranda]

Thanks for nothing Mr. Kalashnikov...

 

[Jemiba]

Thanks for nothing Mr. Kalashnikov...

He did his job, just as other engineers do theirs. I don't think, he's to blame for the fact, that the "Kalashnikov"
still is THE symbol for a fully automatic rifle, because it's the most widely used one. And African child soldiers,
Al Quaida terrorists and other "bad guys" just would use other weapons, if it wouldn't be available. Other
types surely would have filled that niche, I think.

 

[Jemiba]

... but honestly, such inventions remind me on a cartoon by Dik Browne:

 

[Triton]

Thanks for nothing Mr. Kalashnikov...

He did his job, just as other engineers do theirs. I don't think, he's to blame for the fact, that the "Kalashnikov" still is THE symbol for a fully automatic rifle, because it's the most widely used one. And African child soldiers, Al Quaida terrorists and other "bad guys" just would use other weapons, if it wouldn't be available. Other types surely would have filled that niche, I think.

Jemiba is exactly right. Blaming Mikhail Kalishnikov for terrorist violence is like blaming Samuel Colt for violence in the American West. Kalishnikov is not responsible for the proliferation of his design, be they licensed copies, licensed derivatives, or counterfeits, or how the weapons are used.

Mikhail Kalishnikov should not be

 

[fightingirish]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbEZ2SOabv8

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbEZ2SOabv8

 

[PlanesPictures]

for Justo Miranda:
Do you know who baught near to one milion of AK-47 for Taliban? CIA

 

[Triton]

for Justo Miranda:
Do you know who baught near to one milion of AK-47 for Taliban? CIA

Salafi jihadists were the "good guys" when they were known as the Mujahideen (strugglers doing jihad) killing Soviet troops in Afghanistan. President Ronald Reagan called them the "Afghan freedom fighters." Al-Qaeda's origins can be traced to the Soviet War in Afghanistan. So much for the Arab proverb "The enemy of my enemy is my friend."

 

[Grey Havoc]

What ever else, he served his country honorably and well.

Rest In Peace.

 

[Justo Miranda]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

Monsieur Guillotin died proving the efficiency of his invention. He served his country honorably and well.
Alfred Nobel found a way to compensate the victims of his invention

What ever else, he served his country honorably and well.

Rest In Peace.

 

[flanker]

Who cares Justo. For your information, you are on a forum about weapons. Weapons in hands of people, kill people.

 

[Jemiba]

Messieur Guillotin died proving the efficiency of his invention.

Would the French revolution have claimed fewer victims, if they would have been hung or shot ?

Alfred Nobel found a way to compensate the victims of his invention

AFAIK, the reason for his invention was the wish to make the use of explosives, mainly nitroglycerin,
safer.

About Kalashnikov, I don't think, that his rifle made the world a better place, but I don't think neither, that it
would be without it. Terrorists or Somali pirates just would use then another type.
Don't think, that John T. Thompson can be blamed for the death of those killed by the American mafia
during the '20s, although the "Tommy Gun" ws their favorite weapon, as we can learn from all those
movies.
On the other hand, to my opinion there's no need, to honour for example Gregorii Schpagin or John C.
Garand for their "efforts" to relieve the world from Adolf Hitler. They were engineers, who created succesful
weapons, but they had no influence to the use of it.

 

[OM]

...I think we know what will be used to give him the 21-gun salute at his gravesite, natch.

 

[perttime]

Nice job guys!

Shall we also drag Samuel Colt and John Browning into mud?

Might as well go for the Wright brothers for inventing a means of destruction.

 

[kaiserbill]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guillotine

Monsieur Guillotin died proving the efficiency of his invention. He served his country honorably and well.
Alfred Nobel found a way to compensate the victims of his invention

Guillotin did not invent the guillotine.

It is simply named after him.
It was "invented", in the French context, by Antoine Louis, and was, in fact, preceded by hundreds of years by the Scottish Maiden and the Halifax Gibbet.

He also died from natural causes at the ripe age of 75, which was positively ancient for that era in France.

Nobel certainly did not compensate victims.
He instituted the various Nobel Prizes.

 

[Orionblamblam]

Would the French revolution have claimed fewer victims, if they would have been hung or shot ?

Hard to tell. It's easy and cheap to simply hang someone from a lamp-post, which was a popular approach, where a Guillotine required a fairly intricate and expensive mechanism. Of course, once the mechanism was set up, it became easy to run people through on an industrial scale.

I've always wondered at the hate directed at the Guillotine. Given the choice between getting quickly decapitated and being strung up and taking minutes to die, I'd prefer the former.

 

[Justo Miranda]

There has been a researcher who dedicated his life to prove that the Odissey was not authored by Homero but by another Greek with the same name
:

 

[Grey Havoc]

http://www.spacewar.com/reports/Russia_buries_Kalashnikov_in_new_pantheon_for_heroes_999.html

 

[RobertWL]

Is it really Mikhail Kalashnikov's fault that his country dumped millions of AK copies on the third world? Should we blame Eugene Stoner for the many copies of the M16 that are now being used by al-Qaeda around the world? The designers of the Heckler & Koch G3 for the many Pakistani copies now being used by the Taliban? yes, the AK is most prevalent still, but all of these weapons have been supplied in large numbers to various factions, sometimes they ended up in the hands of our enemies, whether it was intentional or not. Think about the untold numbers of FN2000s and other modern firearms being supplied to Libyan Rebels that have turned up in the hands of al-Qaeda? Same with Syria. Don't blame the designers, blame the politicians who throw weapons to anyone who will have them, for whatever stupid reason they've come up with that day.