Legendary Gunsmith Passes Away

According to USAtoday, Mikhail Kalashnikov, creator of the legendary AK-47 and its many variants, had passed away in 2013 at the age of 94. The gunsmith had once wished to create farming tools, but decided instead to create a firearm that would go down in history. Kalashnikov was a tank commander during WWII and saw how poorly the Russian weapons held up against the German weapons, so when he returned home, he set a goal to create a firearm to protect Russia, his homeland. The "AK" stands for "Avtomat Kalashnikov" and the "47" stands for the year of production for the firearm. It is estimated that over 100 million copies of the Kalashnikov rifle are circulating worldwide. The AK platform rifle tends to be associated with guerrilla forces, terrorists, and criminals due to the cheap price of one, leading to the stereotype of the rifle as a "murderer's gun." However, Mikhail Kalashnikov has said, "I sleep well. It's the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement and resorting to violence," in reference to the amount of people who have been killed by someone using an AK platform rifle. The AK-47 rifle, along with its variants are so widely praised in Russia that Kalashnikov received the "Hero of Russia" award when he was 90 years old. Kalashnikov himself hated being asked if he regretted building a weapon that has killed so many people. He responded by saying, "I've designed my weapon to defend the borders of our Fatherland, and let it continue to serve this purpose." Mikhail Kalashnikov had created a firearm that has gone down in history and will continue to be used throughout time due to its reliability, affordability, and simplicity.

AK-47 Prototype