The Libyan terrorists find Doc Brown at the mall.
A view of the drive-by shooters' AK-47.
- "Libyan gunman's barely intelligible curse, when his rifle jammed."
- —Damn Soviet gun!
The AK-47 assault rifle was a Soviet-built machine gun manufactured from 1947 to the 21st century. It had the distinction of being the most widely used and distributed military firearm in the world. The Libyan terrorists had access to these guns and brought one along on a mission to kill Emmett Brown for stealing plutonium from them.
Arriving at at Twin Pines Mall, they successfully gunned down Doc with the AK-47, but once it was pointed at Marty McFly it jammed. After several attempts to unjam the gun, the gunman resorted to using a rocket-propelled grenade, though their Volkswagen Station Wagon crashed into and totaled a Fox Photo booth in the mall's parking lot before they had an opportunity to fire it.
One of the drive-by shooters who opened fire on the Strickland residence in 1985A — namely, the one who shouted "Hey, Strickland!" — also used an AK-47 (Norinco Rifle type 56).
Behind the scenes
- The AK-47 the terrorists used in the movie was likely a very poorly-made knockoff, as the Soviet-made weapon is legendary for being virtually impossible to jam. However, one could consider this malfunction to be the result of the space-time continuum trying to prevent a paradox, such that if Marty is killed, he cannot go back to the past, warn Doc about the terrorists, and then return the car to the future once arriving again.
