Party Guest Killed by Man Showing Off Gun : Violence: Host of get-together is arrested on suspicion of murder. The victim, an attorney, had expressed support of gun control shortly before the shooting.

A 27-year-old Los Angeles attorney was shot to death at a party in the Wilshire District early Saturday morning when a friend showing off his shotgun allegedly fired it, police said.

Adam Scott, a corporate attorney with Crosby Heafey Roach & May, was killed instantly when he was struck in the neck, said the victim’s father, Jack Scott, president of Pasadena City College.

The party’s host, who allegedly fired the weapon, was arrested on suspicion of murder and is being held without bail, Sgt. Bruce Wallace said. Police did not release the suspect’s name and provided no other details of the 12:45 a.m. shooting at a Park La Brea home.

Jack Scott said the party’s host was displaying a shotgun when Adam Scott was shot. He apparently was about four feet away from a group of three people who were looking at the gun, his father said. Scott said he did not know why the gun was fired.

Scott said detectives told him his son coincidentally had expressed his support for gun control shortly before the shooting occurred. “ ‘I don’t even think I could fire a gun in self-defense,’ ” detectives quoted his son as saying to other party-goers.

Adam Scott, a resident of Silver Lake, had graduated from USC Law School in May and joined the law firm in September. Scott, who was single, graduated from UC Berkeley in 1989. He was student body president at Costa Mesa High School in 1984.

Jack Scott said his son called him Friday night before he left for the party. He said he would see his father in church on Sunday, Jack Scott said.

“If there’s any sense to be made of my son’s death, here’s someone that believed in gun control and. . . tragically, in the misuse of the handling of a gun, he’s now a fatality,” Jack Scott said.