4 ms·
Another fine example of how smart people can also be so achingly naive and unworldly. Gee, who would've thought criminals would use a machine gun for offensive
by hyperbovine 13y ago
Another fine example of how smart people can also be so achingly naive and unworldly. Gee, who would've thought criminals would use a machine gun for offensive purposes.
- aaronem 13y agoAt the time Gospodin Kalashnikov designed the weapon which brought his name to the world's attention, his nation had just suffered an invasion of Germans, which was repelled only at the cost of roughly twenty million of his countrymen's lives -- an invasion, moreover, against which Gospodin Kalashnikov himself fought, and was wounded, as part of a T-34 regiment -- and was by no means certain it would not soon suffer an invasion of far more numerous Chinese. In light of that, perhaps it's not so hard to understand how he could have conceived of his weapon as one of defense. (It is, though, rather difficult to understand how you, or indeed anyone, could with a straight face describe such a man as "naïve and unworldly". Ignorance is the kindest explanation I can devise.)
- eps 13y agoGospodin is "master" as in "master and servant". It's been out of active use as a salutation for well over a century. Just FYI.
- aaronem 13y agoI've seen it used, albeit not often, in a sense precisely parallel to that of the German Herr or the Spanish Señor, and it is that sense in which I use it. I have never found myself troubled by being regarded as old-fashioned, but if you know a term which would better serve my purpose, I'd be obliged to you for making me aware of it.
- eps 13y agoSalutations are just not that common in modern Russian. It used to be Gospodin or Sudar (сударь) before the Revolution, but these were forcibly replaced by Tovarish (comrade, or rather - friend). Then after collapse of Soviet Union tovarish died out and neither of old salutations came back. In day to day life if you need to attract someone's attention, you'd use an equivalent of "excuse me", "hey" or "hello". In rare cases people would use "man" (мужчина) or "woman" (женщина), but that's very impersonal and frequently antogonistic, so most people avoid it. In press and written language, it's just the last name, preceded by the position when appropriate. Sometimes they will use gospodin, but that would typically be reserved for pompous occasions and when referring to people at important positions, e.g. a president of a bank. And yet it still looks odd and catches the eye. So in the context of your post it's just Kalashnikov. No gospodin.
- _random_ 13y agoThey were not selling guns to criminals in communist Russia.
- hyperbovine 13y agoYou mean the criminals would have to like, break the law, to get one?!
- guard-of-terra 13y agoI can't remember many gun control problems in USSR. Maybe I'm ignorant or something. Post-soviet russia? Loads and loads of bandits with automatic weapons and whole ethnicities have a habit of firing AK-47 in the blue sky at weddings.
- smsm42 13y agoMaybe. Criminals used guns even in USSR. There was little chance for a regular person - unless he's in the military or militia or like that - to use a gun for self-defense. Of course, that meant that many criminals didn't need to use gun - if the victim is completely defenseless, it is easy to overpower her without the need for a gun. But the criminals got the guns if they needed them, or made them - making a crude gun requires only basic tools.
- seanmcdirmid 13y agoCrude homemade are a problem in China, and producing is a capital crime (but they still get made). Suffice it to say, gun control is not a major issue in the PRC.
- wisty 13y agoApparently, the word I'm looking for is "syllogism". For example "Criminals commit crimes, buying guns is a crime, therefore all criminals buy guns".