The Case Rowan Forgot to Make

The hottest story in Washington, D.C. during the past two weeks was not the Pentagon procurement scandal, but rather the controversy surrounding syndicated columnist Carl Rowan's shooting of a teenaged intruder who had been swimming in his backyard pool.

The blatantly conservative Washington Times, which throughout the week had launched attacks on Democratic nominee-to-be Michael S. Dukakis in its front-page headlines and news articles, made the Rowan incident its lead story, with the obvious intent of discrediting not only a liberal, but a prominent writer for the paper it is supposed to compete with, The Washington Post.

In a brief respite from its efforts on behalf of the Bush campaign, the Times accused Rowan, who has written extensively in the past in support of such gun control measures as handgun registration, background checks on all aspiring buyers, and a "cooling-off" period, of being a hypocrite for keeping an unregistered handgun in his possession.

And long-time Rowan haters, such as spokesmen for the National Rifle Association and right-wing zealot Patrick Buchanan, could not help but join the bandwagon, gloating at this apparent example of "elitist, liberal hypocrisy," and label Rowan "the Jacuzzi Bandit." They and others charged that Rowan has become the 1980s equivalent of the infamous "limousine liberals" of the 1970s, who while advocating busing as a means to integrate the public schools, quietly slipped their children off to Andover and Exeter.

So now the NRA is preparing a massive mailing campaign with Rowan's face and his words plastered all over it. Their message, one assumes, is that if liberals like Rowan refuse to abide by the very gun control laws they advocate, the rest of us shouldn't either.

RESPONDING to his critics, Rowan claimed in his weekly editorial column that there were no inconsistencies between his public statements and his private actions. In a rather incongruous justification of the episode, Rowan argued that although he supports strict gun control laws, he will continue to protect himself and his family (presumably with the same unregistered gun he used on the stoned youth) as long as society continues to tolerate widespread violent crime and drug abuse.

Unfortunately for Rowan, that's the argument that the NRA has been making for years in its mailings, namely that our society cannot or will not protect average, law-abiding citizens from dangerous criminals, and that we must therefore defend ourselves, preferably, NRA gunslingers say, with our own Saturday Night Specials.

However, if Rowan merely had reflected on his own past positions, he would have recognized that his recent action points not to the weakness of the case for gun control, but rather to its validity. For once again, the mere presence of a gun can lead not just a hot-tempered youth or a bitter spouse, but even someone as rational and intelligent as Rowan is, to pull the trigger irrationally.

In his editorial piece, Rowan wrote that he kept the gun so that he would not be defenseless, "naked to the druggies and crooks out there." Yet he ended up using it on some half-naked youth who was guilty of no more than trespassing and could have easily been dragged away, along with his female companion, by the cops.

Of course, hindsight is always 20-20, and it's easy for talk show commentators and editorial writers to condemn Rowan when they have never been the target of death threats the way he has. Yet if the handgun had not been so readily available, what would Rowan have done? Probably called the police, which is what hindsight (and these very commentators) say he should have done in the first place.

HAD the gun not been there, Rowan would be the first witness for the prosecution in a misdemeanor court. Instead he now faces charges of assault with a deadly weapon and up to 10 years' imprisonment. Had he killed or permanently disabled the teenager, Rowan would obviously be facing far more serious charges, and the NRA would be a lot less enthusiastic in twisting the incident to fit its own absurd propaganda.

Had the gun not been there, Rowan's reputation as an insightful and eloquent commentator would not be so suddenly called into question.

Each year, thousands of lesser-known Americans learn the hard way that buying a handgun does not assure protection, but only future trouble. They buy handguns with the expressed purpose of protecting themselves, only to end up using them during family spats or lovers' quarrels with tragic, unforeseen results.

Too often, a father cleaning his handgun accidentally fires it on his four-year-old son, or a six-year-old girl thinks the weapon is a toy and ends up killing her two-year-old brother and becoming permanently scarred by the experience. Too often, when a handgun is in the vicinity, a jilted boyfriend takes his frustration out on his ex-girlfriend, or on himself.

Family members and friends of such victims probably regret, as Rowan should, the fact that the handgun ever was in the closet or on the bedroom table, so easy to reach at a moment's notice. Funny thing, the NRA never mentions these cases in its brochures.

For although depressing to read and write about, such scenarios account for the vast majority of handgun-related deaths each year. Homicide figures in the District of Columbia, for example, show that the number of times a handgun has justifiably been used in self-defense during the last 15 years is no more than four. If you add the Rowan shooting, and that's a big if, it's a whopping five.

Outside of such domestic accidents, there are plenty of other examples where handguns have not been used by law-abiding citizens acting in self-defense, but rather for far more malicious purposes which the NRA would rather not talk about. Several times this winter, Boston police were fatally shot or wounded during drug busts, or just while sitting in their squad cars.

ALL this is not to downplay the potential threat that Rowan may have faced, nor to condone the delinquency, arrogance, bad judgment, and lack of respect which the teenager showed towards the Rowan family at 2 a.m. that Tuesday night. It's just to suggest that Rowan, like the rest of us, would have been far better off without his handgun.