Behind Every Kalashnikov is a Real Kalashnikov

by krshorewood

Put in your orders to Eat Cake, the Kalashnikov has turned 60!

From the AP:

Hospitalized with wounds after a Nazi shell hit his tank in 1941, Michael Kalashnikov decided to design an automatic rifle combining the best features of the American M1 and the German StG44.

"Blame the Nazi Germans for making me become a gun designer," said Kalashnikov, frail but sharp at age 87. "I always wanted to construct agriculture machinery."

Since production began, more than 100 million AK-47s have been made — either at the home factory in the central Russian city of Izhevsk, under license in dozens of other countries, or illegally.

In a related story, thousands of people around the world failed to make it to 60.