"The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not." ~~Thomas Jefferson

"Who will protect us from those who protect us?"

Rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. ~ Thomas Jefferson

"None are so hopelessly enslaved as those who falsely believe they are free." ~~Goethe

13 January 2014

Am I to blame? Mikhail Kalashnikov...

Russia Obit Kalashnikov
FILE - In this July 26, 2002 file photo, Russian weapon designer Mikhail Kalashnikov presents his legendary assault rifle to the media while opening the exhibition "Kalashnikov - legend and curse of a weapon" at a weapons museum in Suhl, Germany. Mikhail Kalashnikov, whose work as a weapons designer for the Soviet Union is immortalized in the name of the world?s most popular firearm, has died at the age of 94, Monday Dec. 23, 2013. (AP Photo/Jens Meyer, File)


MOSCOW (AP) -- Mikhail Kalashnikov, the designer of the AK-47 assault rifle, reportedly wrote a regretful letter several months before his death asking the head of the Russian Orthodox Church if he was to blame for the deaths of those killed by the guns.
The Russian daily Izvestia reported Monday that Kalashnikov, who died last month at 94, wrote to Patriarch Kirill in April and told him he kept asking himself if he's responsible.
"The pain in my soul is unbearable. I keep asking myself the same unsolvable question: If my assault rifle took people's lives that means that I, Mikhail Kalashnikov, ... am responsible for people's deaths," he said in the letter.
"The longer I live, the more often that question gets into my brain, the deeper I go in my thoughts and guesses about why the Almighty allowed humans to have devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression," Kalashnikov continued.
Kalashnikov's daughter, Elena, was quoted by Izvestia as saying that a local priest could have helped her father write the letter, which was typed and carried his signature.
The letter contrasted sharply with past statements by Kalashnikov, who had repeatedly said in interviews and public speeches that he created the weapon to protect his country and couldn't be blamed for other people's action.

Read the rest here.

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1 comment:

Old Bob said...

“Good and evil coexist side by side, fighting and, worst of all, they resign themselves to each other in the hearts of people - that is what I have come to at the end of this earthly life,"
From the Chicago Tribune report
*
Kalashnikov was a patriot and a thoughtful man. What he said could have come straight from Dostoyevsky.
I pray his soul rests in peace.