Well, few people own true AK47's, most own copies of the Russian AKM which is made from stamped parts (as opposed to machined on the true AK47 [1]. I own a semi-auto Romanian WASR 10 - which is very common in the US (PA). They go for ~$300 at a sporting goods store.
It's a lot of fun to shoot, the AK is cheap reliable, historical and can be used for fun, hunting (yes) and in survival situations. I actually do a "StartupGuns" [2] event in Pittsburgh where a bunch of us go shooting like OpenCoffee or similar.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akm ("Features")
[2] http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=207534415228
