Guns have always been a fascinating topic in America. From who's using them to what model, make and brand they are, guns
have become a staple in our modern society. Now, whether that's a sad
or thrilling fact, we've decided to let our readers in on some
interesting facts about one of America's most loved (and hated) assault
rifles: the AK-47.
With a new book on the market entitled
AK-47: The Story of the People's Gun,
Michael Hodges is an expert on this particular weapon, and we got
Hodges to let us in on a few little-known facts about the AK-47 while
researching his work.
1- The inventor of the AK-47 did not profit from the gun
Although by some estimates there are 100 million AK-47-style assault
rifles in circulation around the world, the gun's inventor, Mikhail
Kalashnikov, did not become rich (unlike Eugene Stoner, the inventor of
the American M16 assault rifle, who died a wealthy man).
Communist states had no patents, and until its collapse in 1991,
Kalashnikov was simply an employee of the Soviet Union. “I invented a
weapon to save the motherland, to save the state from fascism,” he said.
“My career has been dedicated to my country.”
Despite that
country awarding him the Hero of Socialist Labor medal and many other
accolades, this particular Socialist hero, who just happened to change
the world, started life as an enemy of the Soviet Union. Kalashnikov
narrowly escaped being shot by Stalin's special police after his family
was denounced as Kulaks in 1932, and exiled to Siberia. Kalashnikov
escaped again when a Panzer shell blew him from his tank in 1941, as the
Soviets fought desperately to halt the Nazi advance on Moscow.
2- The AK-47 is the perfect weapon for children
The AK-47 can be stripped in under a minute and cleaned quickly in
almost any climatic condition. Even if it isn’t cleaned, an AK-47 is
still more likely to fire than any of its rivals given similar treatment
on the battlefield. With only eight moving parts the AK-47 is cheap to
manufacture and easy to use -- so easy in fact that children
can be taught how to properly handle this weapon in a single hour.
Sudanese child soldier Emmanuel Jal picked up his first AK-47 when he
was 9 years old. A fully loaded AK-47 weighs four kilograms: “I don’t
know how I lifted the AK when I was tired. It was so heavy,” he
remembers. “We only had a few AKs but we weren’t scared, it was like a
game with toy guns. When the fighting starts you can put the gun down
and run away, or pull the trigger. Once you’ve done that you are hooked;
it makes you think that no one can touch you. Once you've fired an
AK-47 you become brave.”
3- America may have given bin Laden his first AK-47
Since 1998,
Osama bin Laden has regularly included an AK-47 in the propaganda
videos he releases after terrorist outrages. Consequently, the gun has
come to represent the global jihad, and AK-47 is an integral part of the
regime at fundamentalist camps, as far apart as the English home
counties and the jungles of the Philippines.
These groups and
their adherents are dedicated to the destruction of Israel and America
-- yet it is highly likely that it was Israel and America that
inadvertently put an AK-47 into bin Laden’s hands. When the Israel
Defense Forces invaded Lebanon in 1982 to “crush” the Palestinian
Liberation Organization they captured thousands of AK-47s.These guns
found their way, via the
CIA
and the Pakistani Inter-Service Intelligence Agency, to the Mujahadeen
resisting the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. It is probable that
amongst them would have been the AK-47 that equips bin Laden.
4- The AK-47 is the U.S. army’s most resilient enemy
U.S. forces first came into large-scale contact with the AK-47 during
the Vietnam War. Their own M16s malfunctioned in the heat and damp of
the jungle, but the
Chinese-supplied
AK-47s used by the communists continued to fire. Consequently,
thousands of GIs picked up AK-47s from fallen Viet Cong guerrillas. This
led Americans to open fire on their own side because they presumed the
distinctive pop-pop-pop sound of an AK-47 revealed an enemy position. So
many GIs threw away their guns in favor of AK-47s that a House of
Representatives hearing in 1971 discovered that the U.S. Army attempted
to stop the media reporting the phenomenon. Today, nearly 40 years
later, in the sand and heat of Iraq, American soldiers are once again
giving up their own U.S.-manufactured
weapons in favor of the AK-47.
5- The AK-47 is the weapon of choice for U.S. mass murderers
On January 17, 1989, Patrick Purdey walked into the Cleveland
Elementary School in Stockton, California, armed with a
Chinese-manufactured AK-47. It was fitted with a barrel magazine holding
75 rounds -- both of which he bought legally over a gun-shop counter.
When he walked out again five children were dead and 29 were injured. In
December 1997, Arturo Reyes Torres entered his former place of work,
the Caltrans Maintenance Yard, with an AK-47, killed four and wounded
two. There are many more examples of AK-47 murders in the U.S. The
online Urban Dictionary defines “Columbine” like so: “The constant
bullying of the preppies and jocks has caused him to pick up his AK-47
and go Columbine on everyone.”
Ironically, the Columbine
killers did not use AK-47s, but it doesn’t matter; in America gun crime is now perceived as AK crime.
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