Gun-Control Law Enacted To stem the violence here, the city last month enacted a law that imposes mandatory 30-day jail terms for people caught with unregistered pistols.

The intruder was shot in the wrist by Mr. Rowan, who fired an unregistered pistol.

The unregistered pistol nestled in its own locked box, its shoulder holster coiled around it like a sleeping snake.

At least three had been mugged themselves, as Mr. Goetz had been before he drew an unregistered pistol and shot four youths on a subway car in December 1984.

The unregistered pistol had four rounds in its magazine, Sergeant Burns said.

Before him was a spindly young man who had been caught with an unregistered pistol.

A12 A columnist pleaded not guilty to misdemeanor charges that he used an unregistered pistol to shoot a teen-ager who was trespassing in his backyard.

Carl T. Rowan, the columnist and outspoken advocate of gun control, went on trial here today for possessing the unregistered pistol with which he shot a teen-age intruder at his home June 14.

Convinced, he said, that he was about to be robbed and perhaps harmed, Mr. Goetz took out an unregistered pistol and pulled the trigger four times.

D5 The writer Carl Rowan went on trial for possessing the unregistered pistol he used to shoot an intruder at his home.