I have read criticisms of Kalashnikov for having made the selector/safety go from safe to full automatic (and then semi) and that he made this decision because of Soviet “pray and spray” doctrine. The truth is that the beauty of the AK-47 selector is that pushing it all the way down puts it in semi-automatic mode. If it went from safe to semi, it would take much greater motor control, when under stress, to not push the selector all the way down to full.

[ Many thanks to jdun1911 for emailing me the link. ]