A LOT OF PEOPLE ASK ME HOW I SLEEP - AK-47 Designer Mikhail Kalashnikov

Detroit Free Press ^ | November 19, 2003 | Mark McDonald

[donozark]

In addition, Dr. Kalashnikov is also a member of the National Rifle Association.

[Sender]

How could Henry Ford sleep at night after seeing Atlanta traffic? :)

Bud'te zdoroviye, Dr Kalashnikov.

[Burkeman1]

Agree. Kalishnikov has nothing to be ashamed of. Interesting comparison between the M-16 and the Kalishnikov on the History Channel that is shown sometimes. While the M-16 was more accurate and had better range- and was lighter- it jammed and could be damaged easily. The Kalishnikov was not as accurate- but nearly indestructible and would always fire- and could be used as a killing weapon itself in hand to hand fighting.

[Utmost Certainty]

Wasn't the AK-47 design lifted from the German made StG-44?

[Burkeman1]

Good question! Surprised another person even knows about that weapon. Truly ahead of it's time. Thank God it was produced too late in the war to have any meaningful effect.

[Lazamataz]

He is the Russian version of John Browning. Kalishnikov is one of the best gun designers in the world. This firearm is one of the most versatile and best all-around battle rifles in the world, even today.

[Lazamataz]

You can just tell that Kalashnikov is looking at the AR-15 and seeing ways it can be greatly improved. ;^)

[miloklancy]

Oh I see, I thought he people asked how he slept, because he didn't design the FAL, the M14, or the M1. Again guns don't kill people. People kill people

[miloklancy]

Oh I see, I thought people asked him how he slept, because he didn't design the FAL, the M14, or the M1. Again guns don't kill people. People kill people

[Lazamataz]

Well, correcting myself -- 's prolly a M-16.

[Vigilantcitizen]

"How could Henry Ford sleep at night after seeing Atlanta traffic? :)"

More importantly, what about the pinto?

If I knew my company was responsible for desiging and building that, I'd be calling Dr. Kehvorkian.

[struwwelpeter]

Sometimes they keep me up at night.

[HenryLeeII]

My father met him several years back when his gun club sponsored he and [Ray?] Stoner, inventor of the M-16, as guests during the club's annual Machine Gun Shoot and Chili Cook-Off.

Mr. Kalashnikov wanted to buy a new pair of shoes on the way in from the airport. When they stopped at a shoe store he didn't understand that the displays out front were not the ones for sale, but rather there were many pairs of the same shoe in several sizes in a stockroom in the back. He actually wept when he realized just how different the U.S. is from what he had known all his life.

[FreedomPoster]

Yes. Though it could get ugly, here, before it's over.

And I go by the numbers.

http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/20TH.HTM

[decimon]

Very few AK47s actually were made. The original gun -- the name is an abbreviation of Automatic Kalashnikov 1947 -- was designed that year and went into production in '49. It was soon tweaked and became the AKM. The M stands for modernized.

I thought the "M" stood for "machined" as opposed to cast.

[FreedomPoster]

I dunno. If that's a private gathering, it's probably a semi-auto AK and an AR. Unless the appropriate Class III owners were summoned.

[af_vet_rr]

I will give them robustness and the ability to shoot crappy ammo,and to fire when full of crap

Which is the perfect weapon for an army that relies on numbers and bad weather as its main advantages. I read a story a long time ago about how when it was designed (while WWII was winding down, but still very fresh on the minds of Russians), the most important thing was that it function under bad conditions and require little training. Basically a peasant's weapon that would compliment the Russian weather (which did more to protect Russia than any military unit every did).

Even if they weren't accurate, if you could get them in the hands of large numbers of peasants, it could buy you a lot of time. What they did in WWII with crappy weapons was pretty amazing as it was.

[Eurotwit]

Cheers!

I am a Eurotwit who is supportive of gun control. I know most people here disagree with me. Since I agree with freepers on just about any other issue, could someone please enlighten me on gun control?

God Bless the United States!

[esopman]

If you agree with Freepers on most issues, you are making real progress.

Now: Since this is a thread about guns, and more specifically the Russian Avtomat Kalashnikov, and as I am a 60 year old linguist, scholar of things Russian, father of three daughters, product of university training and all that stuff...I will briefly address the gun control issue.

1. Get educated. Just one of many examples: Read Dr. John Lott on 'More Guns, Less Crime.' You need to have a solid knowledge base grounded in reality, since much of the elite media and popular press is profoundly ignorant of both the current and historic reality of the impact of gun ownership. Please note that those on the side of socialism, state police, big government solutions and the like...lie routinely. Start gathering information from Jews for the Preservation of Firearm Ownership, Gun Owners of America, etc. to balance the leftist mendacity.

2. Alexander Solzhenitzyn, the brilliant Russian writer, was a loyal Communist and Russian trooper in WWII. Arrested and imprisoned by the Stalinist regime, he once lamented that it was a tragedy that families being arrested in the middle of the night by stormtroopers had no means to resist. Tyrants love unarmed peasants.

3. Two universally true statements: Criminals will never, ever obey the law. They will always be able to get guns. Therefore, gun control is victim disarmament. (A corollary: if the only gun owner left is the government, that power will corrupt the government and corrupt it absolutely).

4. Nations which have gun control are either (1) Tyrannies, or (2) Experiencing an upsurge in crime (e.g. Britain and Australia). I choose to live in neither type.

5. At a personal level, I have taught my daughters to shoot. The option is to consider non-resistance. That option leads to victim status - do I really want to see them raped and strangled with their own pantyhose? Or kill a would-be rapist with a Sig Sauer 357? They and I prefer the latter, and like our AK designer in Izhevsk, will sleep better for it.

6. I have lived and worked in Europe. I speak the languages. It is difficult for those encapsulated in the socialist mindset of those societies to understand the risks they really face or the price of freedom. Both are high. I choose freedom. Please consider doing likewise.

7. And in parting, remember this. There are many, many of us in this fair republic of the United States who will never relinquish our guns. Never. Never. Nor will we ever register them. Never, Never, Never. Thus, it is an exercise in futility and an invitation to violence to deprive a free people of the right to preserve their freedom.

[Tunehead54]

Good Sense bump. Thanks

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;-)