TWO LORNE MICHAELS IN ONE! Weekend Update Slams Excessive Gun Ownership: ‘What Are We Preparing For, a Rap Beef?’

As Stephen Miller ‏responds, “Try getting into SNL’s studio. Armed guards inside and outside of 30 Rock.” Additionally, Saturday Night: A Backstage History of Saturday Night Live, the mid-‘80s book by Doug Hill and Jeff Weingrad features this anecdote from the show’s fifth season, when drug use by the original cast was rampant:

Cocaine, in fact, was a principal cause of the surliness the reporters sensed in Saturday Night. The drug itself made many of those who used it hostile. It also made them suspicious of the media, because now they had too much to hide. By the fourth season cocaine had become a staple on Saturday Night, an integral part of the working process there. Fears of a bust increased. In the fifth season Lorne actually posted a guard, a huge black man named Alvin, outside the elevators on the 17th floor. Ostensibly Alvin was there to keep away fans and other well-wishers, but few on the show doubted that an important part of his job was to prevent any sudden surprises from visiting law-enforcement officers.

Was Alvin armed? The book doesn’t say, but he was certainly a rough man hired to do violence on the show’s behalf, to paraphrase the line frequently (and mistakenly) attributed to George Orwell.