The fact that people die because of an AK-47 is not because of the designer, but because of politics.
Interpretation
The responsibility for violence lies in the choices of humanity, not merely in the tools they create.
This quote emphasizes that the tragic consequences of using weapons, such as the AK-47, are not solely the fault of their creators but rather stem from the political decisions and human choices that lead to violence. It highlights the complex relationship between technology, responsibility, and societal issues, suggesting that we must address the underlying political conflicts rather than just blaming the instruments of conflict.
In practice
During a debate on gun control, one could use this quote to emphasize the need for addressing the societal issues that lead to violence.
When a young man, I read somewhere the following: God the Almighty said, 'All that is too complex is unnecessary, and it is simple that is needed.' So this has been my lifetime motto β I have been creating weapons to defend the borders of my fatherland, to be simple and reliable.
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?
It is the Germans who are responsible for the fact that I became a fabricator of arms. If not for them, I would have constructed agricultural machines. (...) If someone asks me how I can sleep at night knowing that my arms have killed millions of people, I respond that I have no problem sleeping, my conscience is clean. I constructed arms to defend my country.
People often ask me how I feel about my invention being used to kill people every day and the AK being a common weapon of ethnic conflicts. I want to make it clear that I created my assault rifle to protect my country. You can blame politicians for its spreading out of control on a global scale.
The reflection, the verisimilitude, of life that shines in the fleshly cells from the soul source is the only cause of man's attachment to his body; obviously he would not pay solicitous homage to a clod of clay. A human being falsely identifies himself with his physical form because the life currents from the soul are breath-conveyed into the flesh with such intense power that man mistakes the effect for a cause, and idolatrously imagines the body to have life of its own.
The apathy of the people is enough to make every statue leap from its pedestal and hasten the resurrection of the dead.
The two greatest things that all men aim at in any free government are liberty and permanency. We have had liberty enough - too much perhaps in some respects - but at all events, liberty to our hearts content.
Each of us has a soul, but we forget to value it. We don't remember that we are creatures made in the image of God. We don't understand the great secrets hidden inside of us.
It is a general principle of human nature, that a man will be interested in whatever he possesses, in proportion to the firmness or precariousness of the tenure by which he holds it.
Reason respects the differences, and imagination the similitudes of things.
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