Mr. Parker on guns

(by Zoran Sevic 5-4-02)

SGM Parker has been known to carry a hand gun on occasion. Tom Saviano (my instr.), Mr. McSweeney, and SGM Parker where out to dinner at a restaurant. Tom Saviano asked Mr. Parker, "Mr. Parker, you are the fastest and deadliest person I have ever seen.

Why would you ever need to carry a gun?" Mr. Parker replied, "Tom, (as he lifts his hands if front of him) these don't work from 10 feet away."

The Bruce Lee Firearm Collection...

Now most folks don't know this, and quite a few...especially some modern martial artist, will react with the same horror to the notion that Bruce Lee owned guns that religious fundamentalists do when confronted by evidence of evolution. But the fact remains, Lee owned guns.

Now it is well known that many of his contemporary martial artists and associates such as Ed Parker were avid gun collectors and shooters.

Ed Parker was known for his collection of AR-15s even in the late 60s and is often cited as being the one who got Elvis Presley involved in collecting what would come to be known as "black rifles."

Other Lee associates such as Steven McQueen are known to have been NFA collectors. And despite Lee's martial prowess he is never known to have been dismissive of guns in his films.

To the contrary in "Enter The Dragon" he quips the line 'Now why doesn't someone pull out a .45 and "bang" settle it?" as an alternative to a government agencies complicated infiltration by martial artist assassin scenario.

Of course plot constructs had to be such that for whatever reason firearms were not an option in order to prevent the movie from being 15 minutes long.

In another film "Return of the Dragon" when threatened by the Mob, Lee inquires about buying a gun for protection. A line that can still make modern martial arts devotees who think "real fighters don't need guns" cringe.

Now it is not known exactly what firearms Lee owned. Despite his modern "non classical" approach to most things, he tended to gravitate towards the traditional when it came to his weapon collection.

It is unlikely Parker convinced him to buy a AR-15 but a few sources suggest he did own a 1911 handgun and a .38 revolver (probably an early S&W). And from my personal collection of rare Bruce Lee photos here is the only "known" photo of firearms owned by Lee.

He bought these two antique rifles in Rome while filming "Way of the Dragon" (released as Return of the Dragon in the US). SteyrAUG"

Elvis gave the Walther PPK to Hawaii-Five-O star Jack Lord in 1973. Tom Jones was once left shocked when he found Elvis Presley’s gun in his dressing room lavatory. Jones struck up a close friendship with Elvis and they would often spend time together when they were in the same city on tour.

But on one occasion, after Jones appeared at Caesar’s Palace in Las Vegas, he was stunned to find a silver-plated Colt .45 automatic pistol on his toilet cistern after Presley had used the bathroom.

Jones tried to discreetly hand it back, only to see Elvis shrug off the incident. He says, “I wrapped it up in this towel, took it out and said, very quietly, ‘Er, Elvis, you left your gun in the toilet.’ And Elvis just goes: ‘Aw s**t man, ma .45’, and stuck it in his belt. I was trying to be very discreet about the whole thing, but he couldn’t have cared less.”

Elvis loved carrying guns of all types. He was known to shoot at TV sets if either Robert Goulet or Mel Torme appeared on the screen. Above: image of one of Evis’ TV which he had his uncle Earl Pritchard remove, who later sold it. At the time of Elvis’ death in 1977 he owned 37 guns, rifles and one machine gun."