Kalashnikov Gun Designer Turns 90

Red Army tank commander Sgt. Mikhail Kalashnikov invented his first machine gun in 1942, during the Second World War, as he sat in a hospital bed recovering from a wound that he got in western Russia.

The question he hates most, and the one he's been asked most frequently over the decades, he said, is whether he feels sorry about the hundreds of thousands of people around the world that were killed as a result of his invention. To that, his standard response is, "I've designed my weapon to defend the borders of our Fatherland, and let it continue to serve this purpose."

Via CNN.