Seems he was also battling with guilt most of his life. One year before his death, Mikhail Kalashnikov wrote a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox Church.

Excerpts:

    “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?”

    “The longer I live, 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.”