Elvis’ Bodyguard Was Shocked the Singer’s ‘Kinky’ Love of Guns Didn’t Get Him in Trouble

Elvis Presley and his bodyguards all carried guns. The singer received death threats, and everyone wanted to be prepared in case someone attacked him. While his bodyguards had no problem with this, they found the way Elvis coveted his guns to be concerning. According to Red West, who worked with Elvis for years, he would not have been surprised to learn that Elvis had gotten into trouble because of guns. 

Elvis’ bodyguard found the singer’s obsession with guns concerning

Elvis owned a large collection of firearms, and he always had one close at hand. While he said this was for protection, it often just put the people close to him in danger. Without warning, Elvis would pull out his weapon and fire it at whatever was close: the headboard, the toilet, the television, or the light fixtures. 

Elvis brought his guns with him when he traveled and often refused to put them away when asked. Red West was surprised this never landed him in serious trouble. West didn’t have a problem with guns, but he found Elvis’ attitude about them concerning.

“Now because, coming from the South, all of us have been pretty close to guns, you grow up with them,” West said in the book Elvis: What Happened? by Steve Dunleavy. “But Elvis is absolutely kinky about them. He would buy an armory if he had the chance. He is kinky about guns and I mean kinky, man. How it hasn’t got him into trouble, I’ll never know.”

Elvis was not careful with guns

Sonny West, another one of Elvis’ bodyguards, said it wouldn’t surprise him to open a newspaper and read that Elvis had shot someone. 

“Now, I carry a gun, and I have a great deal of respect for what a gun can do. I take as much care when I’m carrying that gun as when I drive down the Hollywood Freeway, but Elvis is so damned careless with them, it’s scary,” Sonny said. “I wouldn’t be the slightest bit surprised if one day I pick up a newspaper and see that Elvis has accidentally shot someone.”

He recalled a night when Elvis fired a bullet through the bathroom door and nearly hit his girlfriend, Linda Thompson. 

“I think he was trying to hit a light holder on the opposite wall,” Sonny said. “Well, he’s a lousy shot and he missed. The damn bullet went straight through the wall and missed Linda by inches. If she had been standing up next to the toilet paper holder, it would have gone right through her leg. If it had changed course or bounced off something, it could have killed her, man.”

He kept weapons stored in random places around his house

One of his bodyguards’ major concerns was that Elvis wasn’t careful about where he stored his guns. It was easy to stumble across them, often dangerously, while in his home.

“In Elvis’s houses, wherever he is staying, you just might flop down on a sofa and suddenly you’re sitting on a stray gun,” bodyguard Dave Hebler said. “Sonny did that once, and this gun was jammed upwards between two cushions. He sat right on the point of the barrel, right up his a**. Man, that’s sheer insane carelessness. There are kids sometimes roaming around those places of his.”

Luckily, Elvis never harmed a person, though he destroyed many of his belongings over the years.