Kalashnikov Dies: Invented Weapon for the Global Revolutionary Insurgency

An interesting historical figure, "Mikhail Kalashnikov, 1919-2013."

He played down his weapon's popularity with revolutionaries and terrorists. "This is a weapon of defense,” he said.

Also:

More people are killed per year on average as a result of wars fueled by small arms and light weapons (including the AK-47) than were killed in the nuclear blasts at Hiroshima and Nagasaki in Japan in 1945. In the Democratic Republic of the Congo alone, it is estimated that more than a million people have died in that country’s recent civil war, fought primarily with small arms. The inability of governments to take seriously the damage caused by small arms and light weapons is a failure of major proportions.

More at the full obituary.