Shave and a haircut and an AK-47
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Earlier this year, a Missouri car dealership was giving vouchers for AK-47s to people who bought a new truck. Late last month, the owner of a barbershop in the Okolona neighborhood of Louisville, KY, decided to hold a drawing for the same firearm:
A customer at the Okolona barbershop will win a Romanian made AK-47. [Owner] Bruce Gooden teaches gun safety. He’s a certified concealed carry instructor, a lifetime member of the NRA and he cuts hair. . .“You get one ticket [to win] per customer. If you are an NRA member you get two. If you join the NRA you get six,” said Gooden. “It’s not so much about the AK. It’s about the second amendment. That’s what I’m trying to do, raise awareness,” he said.
As local news reported it:
The gun will be awarded to the winner of the drawing sometime before Christmas.
All Second Amendment and “assault weapon” arguments aside, there’s something about the AK-47 that has always mystified me: This is the “enemy’s gun,” yet red-bloodied Americans love it.
First developed by Mikhail Kalashnikov in the USSR in the 1940s (Automatic Kalashnikov — “AK,” of 1947, “47″), this firearm went on to be the gun, in all its variations, that has killed thousands of Americans in uniform in a number of conflicts, from Vietnam to Iraq to Afghanistan. In all the operations you never heard about in the 1980s, ’90s, and ’00s, Navy SEALs and Special Forces faced fire from this weapon. You’d think the thing would be demonized out the wazoo. “That there’s a commie-socialist-Muslim firearm and I’m not touching it!”
Nope. But if you shoot too many rounds at once with a fully automatic version, legal for federally licensed citizens only, the barrel will get really hot and the wooden fore-end will catch on fire (watch it to the end):
via Get A Haircut, Win A Gun – Louisville News Stor – Flash Player Installation.
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Gosh, Scott, something about that second video is really bringing to mind the Dead Kennedy’s song ‘A Child and His Lawnmower.’
Definitely. I guess the guy is trying to go for some sort of personal record.
In response to another comment. See in context »It’s not even that great of a gun. Old, slightly outdated, not very accurate, and not even close to the most bad-ass semi-automatic rifle out there. It is like people getting excited about driving a Camry.
Skid — Ha! Great comparison. Pretty true, too.
In response to another comment. See in context »Mr. Bowen (& iskid2astop),
On the technical side, the AK-47 is a fabulous weapon. First, nobody fires lots of bullets out of any automatic weapon with a single barrel, you will indeed soften the barrel. You have to fire in bursts to prevent this. This is why the Gatling Gun, for all of its bulky awkwardness, is still in use, you can keep firing that SOB forever without overheating the barrels.
The AK-47 fires a much larger bullet than the M-16 (AR-15) which gives it better stability in flight. The tiny 0.223 M16 bullet can easily go into a tumble flight and has a shorter effective range. The AK-47 is rugged, reliable, durable, and simple, which is a very good thing. If your gun jams, you don’t to have to get a Ph.D. out in the field to fix it. Sure it is bulky and heavy so it is not optimum for every situation. However, in the field, reliability counts for a lot. It is the VW bug of assault weapons, it is none too pretty and can’t do any fancy tricks but it gets the job done – every time (at a good price too). I would also note, that during the Vietnam war, it was not unheard of for US soldiers to pick up the AK-47 and use it place their own M-16.
It is precisely that sort of technical detail that gives people the desire to own an AK-47. Since this weapon is actually not very useful for hunting (you usually want your prey in one piece after you have shot it and it is not really a bit heavy and cumbersome) its only real purpose is to kill people. It is the survivalist / Armageddon mentality, the man (yes, MAN) with the skill and best weapons will survive and all the helpless effete liberals living on the flatlands will be sweep from the face of the earth by the invading hoards.
So there it is. Since you asked.
DLA — Thanks. I knew a Vietnam vet who did that very thing — chucked his M-16 for an AK he found and kept. He said his only worry was being mistaken in the dark with it. As for the plus side of the AK, I’ve heard its muzzle velocity and rate of fire praised. Simple is good, too. And if the price for a Rock River AR-15 is, what, $1,200, then AK price works better. I’ve just always been amazed the origins of the gun or the armies who used it weren’t ever counted against it.
In response to another comment. See in context »[...] the AK-47 has become the top raffle-giveaway gun of the nation, as evidenced by its role in a “machine-gun social” this past weekend in [...]
[...] $1,000, on average). That is, a Soviet-era firearm, one favored by combatants as various as the Viet Cong and the Taliban, low-balls its way through the American market, appealing to gun buyers who have much lightened [...]