"For all the billions of dollars spent by the United States military on space-age weapons and technology, the AK still remains the most devastating weapon on the planet. Its banana-shaped magazine gives this gun a familiar silhouette that makes it a symbol of third-world rebellion and power. Unlike the scourge of land mines in the world, the eighty to one hundred million AKs manufactured and distributed since the rifle's invention in 1947 pose a more dangerous threat because they can be easily transported, repaired, and used by roving bands of assailants. The AK has made possible coups in Africa, terrorist raids in the Middle East, and bank robberies in Los Angeles. It has become a cultural icon, its signature shape defining in our consciousness what a deadly rifle is supposed to look like. Why has the AK earned such a legendary reputation? The gun has few moving parts so it hardly ever jams. It doesn't always shoot straight, but in close combat its awesome firepower (600 rounds a minute)) give it a edge over more sophisticated weapon designs, such as the M-16. American GIs in Vietnam reported that AKs buried in rice paddies for six months or more, unearthed filthy and rusted shut, fired perfectly after kicking the action bolt with the heel of a boot."

"Even saw the lights of the Goodyear Blimp And it read, "Ice Cube's a pimp" (yeah) Drunk as hell but no throwin up Half way home and my pager still blowin up Today I didn't even have to use my A.K. I got to say it was a good day."

"AK-47 is the tool. Don't make me act the motherfucking fool."

"Oh, you've got a gun? So you want to pop that? AK-47. Now nigga, stop that."

"I've seen gangsters get religious when they start bleeding. Saying "Lord, Jesus help me" 'cause their ass leaking. When that window rolls down and that A.K. comes out? You can squeeze your little handgun until you run out. And you can run for your back-up, but them machine gun shells gon' tear your back up."

"Hip-hip hooray for the AK! Spray when I lay competition, what a great day."

"All right, boys, meet your dates for tonight. I'll take the tall blonde."

"Corporal, stow this next to my seat. Better be prepared, never know when you might need an AK."

"You get rich by giving the poorest people on the planet the means to continue killing each other. Do you know why I do what I do? I mean, there are more prestigous assignments. Keeping track of nuclear arsenals. You'd think that more critical to world security. But, it's not. No. Nine out of ten war victims today are killed with assault rifles and small arms. Like yours. Those nuclear missiles, they sit in their silos. Your AK-47, that is the real weapon of mass destruction."

"Of all the weapons in the vast Soviet arsenal, nothing was more profitable than Avtomat Kalashnikova model of 1947, more commonly known as the AK-47, or Kalashnikov. It's the world's most popular assault rifle, a weapon all fighters love. An elegantly simple nine pound amalgamation of forged steel and plywood, it doesn't break, jam, or overheat. It will shoot whether it's covered in mud or filled with sand. It's so easy even a child could use it, and they do. The Soviets put the gun on a coin. Mozambique put it on their flag. Since the end of the Cold War, the Kalashnikov has become the Russian people's greatest export. After that comes vodka, caviar, and suicidal novelists. One thing is for sure, no one was lining up to buy their cars."

"AK-47, the very best there is. When you absolutely, positively, got to kill every motherfucker in the room; accept no substitutes."

"This is the AK-47 assault rifle, the preferred weapon of your enemy, and it makes a very distinctive sound when fired at you, so remember it."

"The Trace: Does it matter what kind of gun a victim is shot with? David H. Newman: It matters a great deal. If it’s a small caliber gun, the wounds are visibly smaller. If it’s a shotgun wound, it’s more visually striking. I’ve seen children who have been shot with a shotgun. I remember this one boy, I think he was eight, he and a friend were playing with a shotgun, and his friend shot him in the face. When he came in, he was still very much alive, but he was in terrible pain and didn’t really have any facial features. But the worst is a wound from an AR-15 or AK-47 — high-muzzle velocity weapons, which impart a tremendous amount of kinetic energy into the body. Those are much more destructive. You’re looking at a wound that, externally, is two, three, four times bigger than any handgun wound. And that is reflective of the damage that happens on the inside. When a bullet from a high-muzzle velocity weapon hits the intestines, it’s like an explosion, whereas a low-muzzle velocity can be very similar to a knife going through the intestines; there’s bleeding, but it doesn’t destroy the whole area. A high-muzzle bullet, however, destroys whole areas of body. With a bone that’s been shot with a standard-issue caliber handgun, you’ll see a break, a hole in the bone, and maybe some displacement. But a high-muzzle weapon shatters that bone into hundreds of microscopic pieces, in a way that cannot be repaired. You need to essentially clean out the bone that has been struck and remove it from the body; it’s now a worthless tissue. You can’t believe that a bullet could do this amount of damage."

"Americans' desire for a certain gun is elementary: if cops use a gun or if a weapon's availability is threatened, people demand the gun."

"Tank: So what do you need? Besides a miracle? Neo: Guns. Lots of guns."

"Robert Kennedy, whose summer home is eight miles away from the home I live in all year round, was shot two nights ago. He died last night. So it goes. Martin Luther King was shot a month ago. He died, too. So it goes. And everyday my government gives me a count of corpses created by the military service in Vietnam. So it goes.My father died many years ago now—of natural causes. So it goes. He was a sweet man. He was a gun nut, too. He left me his guns. They rust."

"A well-regulated militia, composed of the body of the people, trained to arms, is the proper, natural, and safe defense of a free state; that standing armies, in time of peace, should be avoided as dangerous to liberty; and that in all cases the military should be under strict subordination to, and governed by, the civil power."

"Yo, peep. This me name be Gore Vidal. I is spitting rhymes about early history. Why homies give props to Uzis, not books? Ain't nothing but a mystery, aight."

"[T]he balls sent by this gun are not ordinary balls, but little cases of glass. These glass cases are covered with a case of steel, and weighted with a pellet of lead; they are real Leyden bottles, into which the electricity is forced to a very high tension. With the slightest shock they are discharged, and the animal, however strong it may be, falls dead."

"See a gun is real easy In this desperate part of town. Turns you from hunted into hunter Gonna hunt somebody down ..."

"I don't believe in death row Skid row or the gangs Don't believe in the Uzi It just went off in my hand."

"He’d learned to strip and clean and reassemble the machine gun till he could do it with his eyes closed. It was an elegantly simple means of killing large numbers of men in a hurry, assuming that was what you wanted to do."

"The right of self-defense is the first law of nature; in most governments it has been the study of rulers to confine this right within the narrowest limits possible. Wherever standing armies are kept up, and when the right of the people to keep and bear arms is, under any color or pretext whatsoever, prohibited, liberty, if not already annihilated, is on the brink of destruction."

"I do not believe in shooting anything that cannot shoot back."

"I think the NRA is kooky, but I have no problem with firearms."

"Why are the feds worried about me clocking on this corner, when there's politicians out here getting popped in Arizona?"

"I've got a nine millimeter, ready to go off any minute. So, you feel it? Because of the law, I've had to conceal it. If you fuck around you're going to make me reveal it. Hey!"

"It has been argued that the perfection of guns of great destructive power will stop warfare. So I myself thought for a long time, but now I believe this to be a profound mistake. Such developments will greatly modify, but not arrest it. On the contrary, I think that every new arm that is invented, every new departure that is made in this direction, merely invites new talent and skill, engages new effort, offers new incentive, and so only gives a fresh impetus to further development. Think of the discovery of gun-powder. Can we conceive of any more radical departure than was effected by this innovation? Let us imagine ourselves living in that period: would we not have thought then that warfare was at an end, when the armor of the knight became an object of ridicule, when bodily strength and skill, meaning so much before, became of comparatively little value? Yet gunpowder did not stop warfare: quite the opposite it acted as a most powerful incentive."

"Black Americans don't seem to care that their ancestors suffered like hell for the legal right to own and use guns. Not just in wars, but in everyday life. As slaves before the Civil War, blacks had no right to own guns. As freedmen after the Civil War, state and local laws, and outright threats from armed whites, kept them from carrying guns. That meant blacks were easy marks for ordinary criminals, for racist criminals like the Ku Klux Klan, and for political criminals that kept them disarmed and out of the voting booth. But over the decades blacks armed themselves, fought back, and eventually won the fight to own and carry guns like other Americans."

"Homer: Just give me my gun! Wiseguy: Sorry, the law requires a five day waiting period. We've got to run a background check. Homer: Five days? But I'm mad now! Oh, I'd kill you if I had my gun. Wiseguy: Yeah, well, you don't."

"The right of the citizens to keep and bear arms has justly been considered, as the palladium of the liberties of a republic; since it offers a strong moral check against the usurpation and arbitrary power of rulers; and will generally, even if these are successful in the first instance, enable the people to resist and triumph over them."

"What's the dirty little secret behind 'gun control' in America? Here are some hints. Working forever without pay. Whipping and torture. Buying and selling of human beings. Hate. Fear. Suspicion. Terrorism. These hints recall the evil days of slavery, and post-Civil War periods of rule by terror. Those who would own human beings as slaves created 'gun control' laws to keep the power in their own hands. They could not keep African slaves and their American descendants under lifelong control without making sure the slaves remained unarmed. Free black people had served honorably and with distinction in the Revolutionary War. Yet under a 1792 federal law, black men could not serve as part of the state militias. In Louisiana, slaves were forbidden to use a firearm even in self-defense. In South Carolina, slaves could not possess guns without a master's permission. Black persons, whether slave or free, had to have a license or a judge's permission before they could carry a firearm in Florida and Delaware. For black people, guns were banned entirely in several states. Florida laws empowered white 'citizen patrols' to invade and search blacks' homes for guns or other weapons. None of these policies applied, of course, to white people. After the Civil War, 'gun control' laws kept black people 'in their place'. Blacks had to obtain licenses to have guns in Mississippi and Louisiana. Alabama banned all guns in 1866; for blacks. Later, Alabama and Texas placed huge taxes on the sale of handguns, which effectively banned guns for the poor. Tennessee and Arkansas banned the inexpensive handguns which were the only types that poor black people could afford. South Carolina banned all handguns, except those for police and deputies. Those American 'gun control' laws worked; they disarmed most black people. The Ku Klux Klan and others could freely terrorize black families without fear. Unarmed victims couldn't shoot back. Lynch law ruled, and claimed at least 3,446 lives up through the end of the Civil Rights Movement. Gun registration. Licensing. Judicial permit. Police approval. High taxes on guns and ammunition. Selective gun bans. Total gun bans. Police 'gun sweeps' of private homes. Sound familiar? The 'gun control' lobby advocates all of these policies today. These policies historically worked in the past to disarm a targeted people. These policies will have the same effect now. Although the gun prohibitionists have dropped the race hate rhetoric, they use the tried-and-true methods of the slave owners and Klansmen. The same means must achieve the same end; control of the unarmed people. The slave owners feared that armed slaves would not long tolerate their condition. Modern politicians act like they have the same fear. Are we peaceful American citizens the modern day slaves who must be kept in our place? What do these politicians fear from an armed man who wants to defend his family from violence in a bad neighborhood? How does a woman who carries a concealed weapon while walking at night cause crime? Race-based 'gun control' is not ancient history. The federal Gun Control Act of 1968 was passed as a response to race riots in major cities. The GCA wasn't passed to combat ordinary street crime or gang violence; white 'liberal' racism energized that law. Makers, sellers and users of firearms can derail the recent law suits and destroy 'gun control' by putting the gun prohibitionists on the defensive. Make them explain why they favor racism-based laws."

"I could be wrong but I have seen your face before You were the man that I saw running from his door You owed him money but you gave him something more With a gun With a gun You will be what you are just the same Did you pay the other man with the piece in your hand And leave him lying in the rain?"

"Almost invariably, mass shootings occur in gun-free settings. Yet gun control zealots seem determined to create more gun-free settings. How often have supposedly mentally unbalanced shooters opened fire at a meeting of the National Rifle Association? They are apparently not that mentally unbalanced. They pick places where people are not likely to shoot back. A mass shooting at a movie theater a few years ago took place at a theater farther away from where the shooter lived than other theaters in the area that were showing the very same movie. The difference was that this theater had advertised that it was a gun-free zone. Who is more mentally unbalanced, those who are doing the shooting or those who refuse to examine the facts about what kinds of places attract such shooters? Schools and religious institutions are sitting ducks, and the shootings there have gone on until someone else with a gun showed up on the scene. That is what puts an end to the carnage, not gun control laws. People who are prepared to defy the laws against murder are not very likely to be stopped by laws against guns. Only law-abiding citizens are likely to be stopped by gun control laws, and to become sitting ducks. As for facts and statistics, the only ones likely to be mentioned by gun control zealots, including the media, are those on how many people were killed by guns. How many lives were saved by guns will never make it through the ideological filters of the media, the political establishment or our educational institutions. Yet factual data on how many threats or attacks were deterred in a given year by displaying a firearm have long been available. Seldom is it necessary to actually pull the trigger to get some thug or criminal to back off and go elsewhere, often in some haste. Are the only lives that matter those that are lost, usually because there is no gun immediately available to protect them, but not the lives saved because they did have a gun at hand to protect them? Gun control zealots seem especially opposed to people being allowed to carry their guns concealed. But concealed weapons protect not only those who carry them, but also to some extent those who do not, because criminals have no way of knowing in advance who does and does not have a gun. Muggings and rapes become much more dangerous activities for criminals where many law-abiding people are allowed to carry concealed guns. It can take a lot of the fun out of being a thug."

"The grand illusion of zealots for laws preventing ordinary, law-abiding people from having guns is that "gun control" laws actually control guns. In a country with many millions of guns, not all of them registered, this is a fantasy and a farce. Guns do not vanish into thin air because there are gun control laws. Guns — whether legal or illegal — can last for centuries. Passing laws against guns may enable zealots to feel good about themselves, but at the cost of other people's lives. Why anyone would think that criminals who disobey other laws, including laws against murder, would obey gun control laws is a mystery. A disarmed population makes crime a safer occupation and street violence a safer sport."

"Why would an ultimately factual question about the consequences of gun control laws divide people along ideological lines? Only if at least one set of people were more devoted to their vision than to the facts. This shows up when gun control zealots are asked whether whatever new law they propose would have prevented the shooting rampage that they are using as a stage from which to propose a new clampdown on gun ownership. Almost always, the new law being proposed would not have made the slightest difference. That too is part of the farce. A deadly farce. So is the automatic assertion that whoever engaged in a shooting rampage was a madman. Yet these supposedly crazy shooters are usually rational enough to choose some "gun-free zone" for their murderous attacks. They seem more rational than gun control zealots who keep creating more 'gun-free zones'. Gun control zealots are almost always people who are lenient toward criminals, while they are determined to crack down on law-abiding citizens who want to be able to defend themselves and their loved ones."

"Had it? Should've shot it! Now, you're dearly departed."

"For men know that throughout all the prior ages of history the bottom line in male-female relationships has always been woman's need for male protection. Women could not live alone for fear of predation by males. So they lived with a male protector and accepted his dictation of their role, either as a condition of receiving his protection, or because he would impose it upon them by physical force, or both. Access to firearms gives women, for the first time in history, the capacity to live independently and apart from men in safety and freedom."

"What makes a man with a gun seem bigger than a man with almonds?"

"The arms dealers were of especial interest to me. They commonly operated on street corners (some nights, in certain quarters, there seemed to be one on almost every corner) and offered a wide selection of handguns and ammo, the odd assault weapon—hardly surprising in a country where you could, I've been told, blow away a cow with a rocket launcher for a fee of two hundred dollars, less if you were prepared to haggle. I saw in them the future of my own country, where death was celebrated with equal enthusiasm, although candy-coated by Technicolor and video games and television news. When the coating finally wore off, as it threatened to do, there we would all be, in Cambodia."

"“Strange,” he said in a conversational voice, “how, for some men, the possession of a gun acts as a powerful intoxicant. It destroys the reasoning faculties, eh, Carlo?”"

"If survival calls for the bearing of arms, bear them you must. But the most important part of the challenge is for you to find another means that does not come with the killing of your fellow man."

"For pediatricians, talking with families about locking up their guns away from their children has become a routine part of well visits, said Benjamin Hoffman, the president of the American Academy of Pediatrics. When children can’t get access to a gun, it prevents a large chunk of gun deaths and injuries — accidental shootings and suicides. “Having access to a firearm for a child who is experiencing a behavioral health crisis is an absolute recipe for the most tragic things you can imagine,” Hoffman said. Even when children are not direct victims of a gun shooting, they may suffer from mental health blowback of gun violence, the report says. About half of teens in the U.S. worry about a school shooting. And in areas that have been exposed to a fatal shooting at a school, youth antidepressant use jumps by more than 20%."

"Police officer: What are you going to do with that gun?"

"I have a love interest in every one of my films — a gun."

"The security of this country no longer is dependent on private gun ownership, and the weaponry used by members of the military is in no way dependent on personal gun ownership. Uncontrolled gun ownership does not solve collective security; it has become the root of insecurity."

"The surprising thing about the bulletproof water was how poorly the high-powered rifles did. The full metal jacket bullets for the high-powered rifles came apart upon hitting the water. Even the dreaded .50 caliber rifle was only able to penetrate about 3 ft of water."

"For the purpose of securing the working class in the possession of complete power, and in order to eliminate all possibility of restoring the power of the exploiters, it is decreed that all workers be armed."

"“Gunslingers are unimaginative men. If they had an imagination—” (and a brain, I mentally added) “—they wouldn’t use guns to solve every problem they come across. All they understand is shooting.”"