Sipsey Street Irregulars: Kalashnikov crosses over.

Monday, December 23, 2013

Kalashnikov crosses over.

I heard this news flash while I was out today and received this link from FG, among other readers: Kalashnikov assault rifle designer dead at 94

FG's two cents:

Regardless of one's personal opinion concerning the General's original concept, it would not be an understatement to submit that that his AK-47 design quite literally affected the very geopolitical structure of our world. And it continues to do so.... to this very day.

See also: AK-47 rifle inventor Mikhail Kalashnikov dies at 94

7 comments:

Steven Lang said...: He is the only commie bastard that I will ever wish RIP to, and that is based solely on his design work (be it original or copied from earlier German designs) and his duty to and love for his Motherland-something we call patriotism, I believe.; December 23, 2013 at 7:38 PM
ag42b said...: Kalashnikov was a sergeant when his redesign of a German rifle was adopted by Stalin's Soviet Union as its service weapon. His design was noted for its durability and simplicity.

I saw footage of Kalashnikov receiving the Hero of Russia award on his 90th birthday. He appeared to be wearing a general's uniform while receiving Russia's highest award.

Kalashnikov was known to have been modest and self-effacing. When pressed by media types about how many people had died because of his design, he replied that he had wished sometimes he had designed a lawnmower instead.

He was just a man doing his job for his country, as best as he knew how, in trying times. I do not hold any animosity against him. It was the politicians who distributed his product for use that bear any blame.; December 23, 2013 at 8:29 PM
J said...: Kalashnokov is, to me, a genius along the same lines as John Moses Browning - whatever one thinks of his nationality, like Browning, his creations will continue to be appreciated for generations beyond his own lifetime.; December 23, 2013 at 9:25 PM
Anonymous said...: While there are those who claim that Kalashnikov is actually dead, I tend to have my doubts.

I think that if you just throw him in the mud and maybe a bit of sand too, then rinse him off in a nearby pond or stream - he will continue to keep on functioning.; December 24, 2013 at 12:17 PM
J said...: @@ ANONY 12:17 -
Three thumbs up, for perhaps the best statement that could be made.; December 24, 2013 at 7:21 PM
Anonymous said...: I too like the Automat Schmeisser/Horn/Schink/Gruner.
Milkhail who?; December 26, 2013 at 9:29 AM
Paul X said...: He is a genius who, along with Browning, advanced the notion of an armed populace - one of the true pillars of liberty. It's strange that he managed to do so, given the situation he was in, and it might not even have been his intention. But the fact remains, that is what he did.; December 26, 2013 at 1:19 PM

"Progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress."

I believe that liberty is the only genuinely valuable thing that men have invented, at least in the field of government, in a thousand years. I believe that it is better to be free than to be not free, even when the former is dangerous and the latter safe. I believe that the finest qualities of man can flourish only in free air – that progress made under the shadow of the policeman's club is false progress, and of no permanent value. I believe that any man who takes the liberty of another into his keeping is bound to become a tyrant, and that any man who yields up his liberty, in however slight the measure, is bound to become a slave. -- H.L. Mencken

"The Fate of Unborn Millions. . ."

"The time is now near at hand which must probably determine, whether Americans are to be, Freemen, or Slaves; whether they are to have any property they can call their own; whether their Houses, and Farms, are to be pillaged and destroyed, and they consigned to a State of Wretchedness from which no human efforts will probably deliver them. The fate of unborn Millions will now depend, under God, on the Courage and Conduct of this army-Our cruel and unrelenting Enemy leaves us no choice but a brave resistance, or the most abject submission; that is all we can expect-We have therefore to resolve to conquer or die." -- George Washington to his troops before the Battle of Long Island.

"We will not go gently . . ."

This is no small thing, to restore a republic after it has fallen into corruption. I have studied history for years and I cannot recall it ever happening. It may be that our task is impossible. Yet, if we do not try then how will we know it can't be done? And if we do not try, it most certainly won't be done. The Founders' Republic, and the larger war for western civilization, will be lost.

But I tell you this: We will not go gently into that bloody collectivist good night. Indeed, we will make with our defiance such a sound as ALL history from that day forward will be forced to note, even if they despise us in the writing of it.

And when we are gone, the scattered, free survivors hiding in the ruins of our once-great republic will sing of our deeds in forbidden songs, tending the flickering flame of individual liberty until it bursts forth again, as it must, generations later. We will live forever, like the Spartans at Thermopylae, in sacred memory.

-- Mike Vanderboegh, The Lessons of Mumbai:Death Cults, the "Socialism of Imbeciles" and Refusing to Submit, 1 December 2008

"A common language of resistance . . ."

"Colonial rebellions throughout the modern world have been acts of shared political imagination. Unless unhappy people develop the capacity to trust other unhappy people, protest remains a local affair easily silenced by traditional authority. Usually, however, a moment arrives when large numbers of men and women realize for the first time that they enjoy the support of strangers, ordinary people much like themselves who happen to live in distant places and whom under normal circumstances they would never meet. It is an intoxicating discovery. A common language of resistance suddenly opens to those who are most vulnerable to painful retribution the possibility of creating a new community. As the conviction of solidarity grows, parochial issues and aspirations merge imperceptibly with a compelling national agenda which only a short time before may have been the dream of only a few. For many Americans colonists this moment occurred late in the spring of 1774." -- T.H. Breen, The Marketplace of Revolution: How Consumer Politics Shaped American Independence, Oxford University Press, 2004, p.1.

Sipsey Street Irregulars

Monday, December 23, 2013

Kalashnikov crosses over.

7 comments:

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