The inventor
of the most popular assault rifle has passed on after being in the intensive
care in Izhevsk since November 17. Mikhail Kalashnikov’s invention has been credited
for more deaths of human beings than any other weapon.
AK-47 was
named after the inventor “Avtomat Kalashnikov” and its year of invention which was
1947. AK-47 has been preferred by many because of its simplicity and its
ability to work in any weather condition.
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| Mikhail Kalashnikov Image: Reuters |
The weapon
has been used by terrorists and rebels around the world because of its
features. However, Kalashnikov claimed while he was alive that he didn’t make
the AK-47 to kill innocent people but to protect the republic.
“I invented
it for the protection of the motherland. I have no regrets and bear no
responsibility for how politicians use it,” he once said.
“I sleep
well. It’s the politicians who are to blame for failing to come to an agreement
and resorting to violence,” he said on another occasion in 2007.
However, this
doesn’t mean that Kalashnikov was satisfied with everything his invention was
used for. “I’m proud of my invention, but I’m sad that it is used by
terrorists,” he once said.
Kalashnikov
had not always been a fan of weapons as he once confessed he would have preferred
building agricultural machinery.
“Blame the
Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer,” he said. “I always wanted to
construct agricultural machinery.”
Mikhail
Kalashnikov who was born in 1919 died at the age of 94 and his work still lives
on although he didn’t make much money from it because he didn’t have a patent
for it.
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Inventor of AK-47 assault rifle dies