مايكل كلاشنيكوف

2. Mikhail Kalashnikov: AK-47.

Kalashnikov designed the semi-automatic rifle that bore his name for the Russian army at the end of the Second World War after witnessing terrible casualties in battle and being injured himself. Designed to be a simple automatic rifle that could be made cheaply using the mass production methods available at the time, Kalashnikov, who died in 2014, lived long enough to see his creation be responsible for more deaths than any other assault rifle.

"I keep coming back to the same questions. If my rifle claimed people'€™s lives, can it be that I..., an Orthodox believer, am to blame for their deaths, even if they are my enemies?" he wrote in a letter to the head of the Russian Orthodox church in 2010.