HILL VALLEY, USA – Ever since Marty McFly travelled to the future to save his children in the cult classic film series Back To The Future the date of the 21st of October 2015 has been eagerly anticipated by fans of the series as well as fans of the linear progress of time. Though the film may have got predictions of the ubiquity of flying cars and self tying shoelaces slightly wrong, one thing it predicted completely accurately was the lack of change in gun control laws in America in the period 1989 to 2015.

Amongst the wacky time travelling and hoverboarding hi-jinks of ‘The Doc’ and Marty the film depicts a future where a gang of clearly unbalanced, not to mention stupid, teenagers manage to acquire a military grade degaussing unit and use it to assault the Hill Valley Payroll Substation in an attempted robbery. A detail that will ring true to many living in the United States in 2015, just as it did to those living in 1989. Film critics at the time of release scoffed at the idea that in a period of over a quarter of a century the most advanced democracy in the world would fail to pass any legislation designed to limit the access of citizens to military weapons. One contemporary review from The New Yorker went as follows.

“I enjoyed the film, particularly the performance of Michael. J. Fox, but as is often the case with time travel films there are gaping plot holes. How, for instance did Marty’s son manage to get his hands on a degaussing unit (whatever that is!) to use in a robbery? Fair enough if the film was set in the present day where access to assault rifles and sub machine guns for ordinary citizens is unfettered, but one would expect that this will be impossible in 1995, let alone 2015.”

Even though since the film was made twin airbags in cars have been made mandatory in the United States to protect passengers and smoking has been banned in public by 28 states for public health reasons, the laws on gun ownership have not changed. Despite a few close calls in the twenty-six years since the film was written Bob Gale, who wrote the original screenplay, was always quietly confident his depressing prediction would come true.

“Sure there were times I thought it wasn’t going to happen. To be honest in 1994 when Clinton banned assault rifles, I came close to admitting defeat. Then the Republicans got control of Congress and allowed the ban to expire and rolled back a few other measures so the prediction was back on. Some things never change. One of those things is the American willingness to allow anybody and everybody access to high-powered weapons which they can use to commit acts of violence and suffering in public on a scale that would make a day at the Coliseum in Ancient Rome look like something put together by Pixar.”

With no chance of any change in the status quo of US gun legislation in the near future film fans now look ahead to 2066, the year in which the creators of Judge Dredd made the exact same prediction on gun laws. In a post apocalyptic future world full of societal violence and drug crime it seems insane that nothing would have been done to curb one of the main components of societal violence and drug crime but at the time of press it seems obvious that fans of late 20th century movies set in the future are planning to celebrate another worryingly accurate prediction.