Kalashnikov ‘remorse’ for his gun’s victims

Mikhail Kalashnikov, designer of the legendary AK-47 assault rifle, turned to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church in the months before his death to express remorse for those killed by his invention.

Kalashnikov, who died in December at the age of 94, in April wrote a lengthy emotional letter to Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Kirill, Izvestia, a pro-Kremlin daily, reported.

“My spiritual pain is unbearable. I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle took away people’s lives, then can it be that I ... am guilty for people’s deaths, even if they were enemies?” Kalashnikov asked.