Founder of "No Guns" anti-gun group pleads to gun charges

Rowan gained public notoriety on June 14, 1988, when he shot a teenage tresspasser, Neil Smith, who was taking a dip in Rowan's swimming pool in Washington, D.C.. Rowan used an unregistered .22 LR pistol. Critics charged hypocrisy, since Rowan was a strict gun control advocate. In a 1981 column, he advocated " a law that says anyone found in possession of a handgun except a legitimate officer of the law goes to jail -- period." In 1985, he called for "A complete and universal federal ban on the sale, manufacture, importation and possession of handguns (except for authorized police and military personnel)." <2> <3>

Immediately after the shooting, Rowan offered several conflicting accounts about where he got the handgun. He first said that he had purchased the gun himself in response to threats on his life (which he later claimed had been made by the Ku Klux Klan). He also initially claimed that the gun had been properly registered. However, when District of Columbia police disclosed that the gun had not been registered, Rowan changed his story, claiming that the gun belonged to his son, who "was an FBI agent and did not have to register it properly registered federally." Police officials pointed out that under D.C. law, all guns must be registered locally; failure to do so was punishable by up to a year in prison and a $1,000 fine.

Rowan was tried but the jury was deadlocked, the judge declared a mistrial and he was never retried. In his autobiography, Rowan said he still favors gun control, but admits being vulnerable to a charge of hypocrisy <4>.

Million Mom Marcher Barbara Graham shoots innocent man Kikko Smith - also known as Barbara Lipscomb

"You can't tell the kids to stop the violence with the mothers running around like this." --- Mary Ann Smith, after her son was shot by a Million Mom Marcher

After helping to organize the Million Mom March, and even speaking at the event, Barbara Graham was convicted of shooting an innocent man. Now he is paralyzed for life.

The Washington Post reported that "Police recovered three handguns and a TEC-9 submachine gun at her home." Note that the TEC-9 was banned by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban (AWB).

Perata is a staunch advocate of gun control. In 1999, Perata successfully drove legislation that updated the California "assault weapons ban" by adding a ban of generically-described semi-automatic firearms. However, he has been accused of hypocrisy on gun control, since he himself possesses a concealed weapons permit - something quite difficult for the average citizen in a California metropolitan area to acquire. Nevertheless, Perata deems the weapons permit <1> necessary due to a number of death threats presumably received from certain opponents of his firearms related legislative activity.