General Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the AK-47 assault rifle named after him, is a hero in Russia whose upcoming 90th birthday is to be a national celebration. He recently said he regrets that terrorists and gangsters use his design.
The
Avtomat Kalashnikov type 47 (AK-47) has become the most widely used automatic rifle in the world, with more than 50 armies and untold numbers of revolutionary and rebel groups -- as well as drug traffickers and gangsters -- using it.
The AK-47 and its derivatives have the advantage of being cheap to mass produce, simple to learn and operate, as well as being tough and continuing to work in adverse weather conditions. Its inventor said in a video
interview from a secret Soviet-era arms testing facility:
It is painful for me to see when criminal elements of all kinds fire from my weapon.
I created this weapon primarily to safeguard our fatherland.
Kalashnikov added:
When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed.' So this has been my lifetime motto — I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.
One problem is that many Kalashnikov rifles are manufactured illegally. While most former East Bloc countries and many others produce Kalashnikovs legally under licence, out of about 100 million that have been produced, only half are legal.
Head of the Russian arms trading monopoly Rosoboronexport, Anatoly Isaikin, said the illegal copies: ”Tarnish the brand because these weapons are sold in conflict regions." Isaikin added:
Of course, their quality can stand no comparison with those Kalashnikovs produced in Russia.
The head of
Izhmash, where Kalashnikov was chief designer and which builds the AK rifles, said Russia only had new a licence agreement with Venezuela, where a regular factory would be built. Construction of guns would begin in two years.
The basic design of the AK-47, itself strongly influenced by the German WWII Sturmgewehr-44, has been used in designs such as the Finnish RK 95, the Israeli Galil rifle, the Chinese Norinco Type 86 and the South African R-4 and R-5 rifles.
