# Did Jim Rockford carry a gun? **URL:** \ **Category:** Cafe Society\ **Tags:** tv-shows-scripted\ **Created:** [April 3, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737 "2015-04-03T19:41:55Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/1 "2015-04-03T19:41:55Z")
_The Rockford Files_ often plays in the background while I work. I like the noise of the TV, and I don’t have to pay attention to what’s on. (Although there are things on TV that I can’t filter out, which is why I play ignorable pablum.) I know Jim Rockford was an ex-con, but that he received a ‘full pardon’. ISTR that he was, in fact, wrongly convicted and that his pardon acknowledged this and restored his civil rights. As such, it seems that there would be no barrier to his owning a firearm. In the show, _was_ he legally allowed to own a firearm? Did he carry one whether he was legally allowed to or not? Since I don’t pay attention when it’s on, I’m not sure; but it seems he generally went unarmed. ---
**Author:** ![Master\_Wang-Ka](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/master_wang-ka/32/3325_2.png) [@Master\_Wang-Ka](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Master_Wang-Ka)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/2 "2015-04-03T19:55:58Z")
I don’t recall him carrying a firearm in any episode I ever watched. Considering the number of times he got the crap kicked out of him, I’m assuming he either could not legally carry one, or had some sort of moral objection to them that outweighed getting his ass kicked about every third episode. ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/3 "2015-04-03T19:58:49Z")
Didn’t he keep it in the cookie jar in his trailer? He never carried as far as I recall. ---
**Author:** ![Procrustus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/procrustus/32/2994_2.png) [@Procrustus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Procrustus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/4 "2015-04-03T19:59:12Z")
In the deep recesses of my memory I seem to recall he had one locked up somewhere, and he only went to get it when he was expecting some bad shit to go down. ---
**Author:** ![silenus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/silenus/32/166_2.png) [@silenus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/silenus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/5 "2015-04-03T20:00:05Z")
According to Wiki, he owned a Colt Detective pistol, but he didn’t have a carry permit. ---
**Author:** ![CarnalK](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/carnalk/32/486_2.png) [@CarnalK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CarnalK)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/6 "2015-04-03T20:05:17Z")
> [@Procrustus](#): > > In the deep recesses of my memory I seem to recall he had one locked up somewhere, and he only went to get it when he was expecting some bad shit to go down. That is my foggy memory as well. And holy jeez. I can’t believe how many full episodes are on youtube. Are the rights to the show in limbo or something? ---
**Author:** ![Fear\_Itself](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fear_itself/32/19637_2.png) [@Fear\_Itself](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fear_Itself)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/7 "2015-04-03T20:11:19Z")
I seem to recall he kept a revolver in a coffee can. ---
**Author:** ![Dallas\_Jones](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/dallas_jones/32/3277_2.png) [@Dallas\_Jones](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dallas_Jones)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/8 "2015-04-03T20:12:14Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > Didn’t he keep it in the cookie jar in his trailer? He never carried as far as I recall. This is right. He did have one stashed in the cookie jar. I do not recall him ever shooting it or drawing it during a case, but I think he may have taken it with him once or twice. Or maybe he pulled it out of the cookie jar and then thought better of it and put it back. But yes, he had a gun and there weren’t any cookies in the jar. ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/9 "2015-04-03T20:25:08Z")
> [@silenus](#): > > but he didn’t have a carry permit. Ha! When I moved up here, I got a carry permit. Not because I want to carry a firearm, but just because I _could_. I’ve heard it’s virtually impossible to get a permit in L.A. ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/10 "2015-04-03T20:49:33Z")
“His gun is deadly. Mine’s in the cookie jar.” From _White on White, and Nearly Perfec_t. (The episode with Tom Selleck.) He rarely carried it, preferring the non-deadly approach. Probably didn’t want the legal trouble if he used it, even in self-defense. I loved the episode where he cracked shelled peanuts in his pocket to imply he was carrying. One of the Richie Brockelman episodes. ---
**Author:** ![Quercus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/7ab992/32.png) [@Quercus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quercus)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 8:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/11 "2015-04-03T20:54:20Z")
> [@Master\_Wang-Ka](#): > > I don’t recall him carrying a firearm in any episode I ever watched. Considering the number of times he got the crap kicked out of him, I’m assuming he either could not legally carry one, or had some sort of moral objection to them that outweighed getting his ass kicked about every third episode. It might not be legal or strictly moral reasons. For instance, maybe he considered the number of times he got the crap kicked out of him, and decided that having something deadly available to his attackers would be a bad idea, even if some percentage of the time the deadly object might help him avoid a beat-down. ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 9:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/12 "2015-04-03T21:19:06Z")
Jim Rockford was a felon iirc ---
**Author:** ![Johnny\_L.A](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/johnny_l.a/32/1084_2.png) [@Johnny\_L.A](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Johnny_L.A)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 9:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/13 "2015-04-03T21:21:57Z")
> [@PatriotX](#): > > Jim Rockford was a felon iirc But he was wrongly convicted and received a full pardon. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 9:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/14 "2015-04-03T21:40:15Z")
I recall an episode where he was in a car and a woman handed him a handgun and he said “I don’t happen to have a permit to carry one of these”. ---
**Author:** ![Peter\_Morris](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/peter_morris/32/359_2.png) [@Peter\_Morris](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Peter_Morris)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/15 "2015-04-03T22:00:47Z")
> [@Johnny\_L.A](#): > > But he was wrongly convicted and received a full pardon. Yes, but a pardon is not the same as an acquittal. It means that the crime has been forgiven, not that the person was innocent. Officially, he is still a convicted criminal. > **[Pardon](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardon)** > > A pardon is a government decision to allow a person to be relieved of some or all of the legal consequences resulting from a criminal conviction. A pardon may be granted before or after conviction for the crime, depending on the laws of the jurisdiction. > Pardons can be granted in many countries when individuals are deemed to have demonstrated that they have "paid their debt to society", or are otherwise considered to be deserving of them. In some jurisdictions of some nations, accepting a pard... \*A pardon is the forgiveness of a crime and the cancellation of the relevant penalty… Pardons are sometimes offered to persons who are wrongfully convicted or who claim they have been wrongfully convicted. In some jurisdictions, accepting such a pardon implicitly constitutes an admission of guilt (see Burdick v. United States in the United States), so in some cases the offer is refused. \* ---
**Author:** ![Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba9def/32.png) [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Just_Asking_Questions)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/16 "2015-04-03T22:41:19Z")
There has never been any clarification as to what Rockford was actually convicted of, was there? ---
**Author:** ![SirRay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/cc9497/32.png) [@SirRay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SirRay)\ **Post date:** [April 3, 2015, 11:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/17 "2015-04-03T23:52:10Z")
> [@Just\_Asking\_Questions](#): > > There has never been any clarification as to what Rockford was actually convicted of, was there? As CarnalK mentioned, all 120+ episodes of the original series can be found on the web, so I took advantage of that wonderful fact over the past few months. In none of the OS episodes do I recall anyone stating the exact crime he was sent to prison for 5 years for. There are episodes where its clearly indicated he was working as a con-artist prior to prison, but nothing about the arrest itself. Jim would sometimes carry his cookie-jar-stashed gun with him and draw it, but was much more likely to take a gun from the villains (one Rockford way or another) and use that to threaten the criminals, persuade them to surrender, etc. without firing it. He definitely fired a shotgun at a criminal during a shootout in the Season 5 episode “Heartache of a Fool”, and I believe he fired a weapon in a few more episodes, but what he mostly did with guns was to take them from the criminals he outwitted/outpunched/outraced and hand them to the law enforcement officers just arriving on the scene (after the action was over). ---
**Author:** ![cochrane](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cochrane/32/10441_2.png) [@cochrane](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cochrane)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/18 "2015-04-04T00:10:55Z")
The Rockford Files also runs Mon-Fri on MeTV. And I’m sure Universal still owns the rights, so they could probably claim copyright infringement and have them pulled from YouTube if they chose to. ---
**Author:** ![pkbites](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/pkbites/32/204_2.png) [@pkbites](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/pkbites)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 12:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/19 "2015-04-04T00:14:05Z")
> [@Peter\_Morris](#): > > Yes, but a pardon is not the same as an acquittal. It means that the crime has been forgiven, not that the person was innocent. Officially, he is still a convicted criminal. That is incorrect, per the [BATF](http://www.atf.gov/files/firearms/industry/0501-firearms-top-10-qas.pdf): _Felons whose convictions have been set-aside or expunged, or for which the person has been pardoned or has had civil rights restored **are not considered convicted under section** 922(g)(1)_ * * * Therefore, a person who has been pardoned is no longer considered convicted of that crime, and if they had no other felonies they were convicted of they can legally own/possess a firearm. ---
**Author:** ![sparky\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/77aa72/32.png) [@sparky\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/sparky_1)\ **Post date:** [April 4, 2015, 12:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737/20 "2015-04-04T00:33:30Z")
As others said, no, he didn’t carry a gun, but did keep a revolver in the cookie jar (which Rocky was too pleased with). Does anyone know if the TV movies are streaming anywhere? [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/did-jim-rockford-carry-a-gun/716737.md?page=2)