In this day and age of boast and bravado, many athletes like to roll up their sleeves and flex their "guns."
But for some, it's not about the amount of inches in their biceps. It's about millimeters and caliber. It's about those other guns. Real guns. Deadly guns.
When Costas Christofi, a 55-year-old limousine driver, was killed by a shotgun blast in February in the mansion of former NBA player Jayson Williams, it was just the latest incident involving a professional athlete and a gun.
More and more these days, papers are full of stories about athletes being arrested for carrying concealed weapons. Policymakers and researchers cringe, parents shake their heads in chagrin, and kids receive another wrong message.
What is the fascination that some athletes have with guns? Protection? Image? Power?
The questions are being asked again after Williams was charged in the shooting death of Christofi. Williams was reportedly fooling around, twirling a loaded shotgun while giving a tour of his 40-room digs when the gun accidentally went off.
This is the same Jayson Williams who had a felony count of reckless endangerment reduced to a misdemeanor in 1994. And the same Jayson Williams who wrote in his autobiography that he almost shot New York Jets wide receiver Wayne Chrebet while firing a shotgun at a skeet-shooting range.
"I don't know why some athletes have this fascination with guns," Magic coach Doc Rivers told the Orlando Sentinel last week. "My dad was a cop, and he always told me the best way to get killed is to have a gun in the house."
In recent years, Phoenix Suns guard Penny Hardaway and Atlanta Falcons wide receiver Andre Rison were charged with threatening their girlfriends with guns. Seattle Seahawks wide receiver Brian Blades was charged with manslaughter in the shooting death of his cousin.
San Diego Chargers defensive tackle Leonardo Carson was arrested after he allegedly threatened an auto mechanic with a pistol. Scottie Pippen, Vernon Maxwell and Allen Iverson are other notable NBA players arrested for allegedly packing a rod.
Since the first of this year, three NFL players — Cleveland Browns defensive tackle Gerard Warren, Carolina wide receiver Muhsin Muhammad and Chargers wide receiver Jeff Graham — have all been busted on weapons charges.
San Francisco Bay area radio personality Tom Tolbert, a former NBA player, remembers Stanley Roberts carrying a gun into the locker room when they were teammates with the Los Angeles Clippers a decade ago.
"I always told him, 'Keep that thing away from me,' " Tolbert said. "It was just freaky. I always felt that if I had a gun, something that shouldn't happen would happen."
And all too often, something seems to happen.
In the latest incident, two people were found shot to death last Thursday in the car of former heavyweight champion Hasim Rahman.
In his book, Dennis Rodman said he once contemplated taking his own life as he sat with a gun outside the Pistons' arena in Auburn Hills, Mich. He also wrote that someday, "I'll take out a gun and shoot myself in the head."
Jon Vernick, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, said his organization has not studied the preponderance of athletes packing heat these days.
He allows that perhaps it just seems that way because when an athlete is arrested, the story runs in the newspaper the next day.
Still, Vernick acknowledges, "It's quite a negative message it sends to young people who perceive that person as a role model."
This phenomenon of pistol-packing athletes might actually be traced to 1971, when California Angels infielder Chico Ruiz reportedly pointed a gun at teammate Alex Johnson in the clubhouse. According to the Associated Press, at least three other Angels carried guns at that time.
The question is: Why? The answers vary.
"First is protection, possibly," surmised Ross Flowers, a sports psychologist at the University of California, Davis. "These people receive a lot of attention and make a fair amount of money. They might be wearing expensive jewelry or driving nice cars.
"It's similar to entertainers who carry weapons or have bodyguards. They feel they need to protect themselves."
Tim Green, an author and sportscaster for Fox, said he purchased a gun after he was drafted by the Atlanta Falcons in 1986.
"You're in a new town, a new place, with money you never had before, with cars you never had before, with homes you never had before," he said. "With all that visibility, you think you could be a target. It gives you the jitters."
Other explanations are that the athletes are merely a product of their environment. If they grew up around guns as kids, they are more likely to carry one as adults.