Mikhail Kalashnikov, inventor of the world’s most popular gun, may not have been as proud of his deadly creation as we previously reported.

The BBC has published excerpts from a letter that Kalashnikov wrote to the leader of the Russian Orthodox church, of which he said he was a devout follower:

But in a letter, published in Russia’s pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia, he wrote: “My spiritual pain is unbearable.

“I keep having the same unsolved question: if my rifle claimed people’s lives, then can it be that I… a Christian and an Orthodox believer, was to blame for their deaths?” he asked.

“The longer I live,” he continued, “the more this question drills itself into my brain and the more I wonder why the Lord allowed man to have the devilish desires of envy, greed and aggression”.

The letter is typed on Kalashnikov’s personal writing paper, and is signed with a wavering hand by the man who describes himself as “a slave of God, the designer Mikhail Kalashnikov”.

The church, for its part, has said weapons designed and used to protect Mother Russia are A-OK from God’s perspective.

— Posted by Peter Z. Scheer

(Via The Verge)

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