Police try to track how arsenal was acquired
By David Abel, Globe Staff, 12/28/2000
he .32-caliber handgun dates back to around World War II. The .40-caliber semiautomatic rifle with a sniper scope stashed in his locker and the Chinese-made AK-47 are more modern. And the 12-gauge pump-action shotgun appears to be the most recently made and could have been purchased off the shelf of a gun store anytime in the past few years.
The varying ages of the weapons police say Michael M. McDermott allegedly used to slay seven colleagues could hamper efforts to discover how the 42-year-old software tester amassed such a deadly cache.
Still, with help from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, police hope to determine within the next few days how McDermott came to possess weapons prosecutors believe he was not permitted to carry.
''We're doing our best to track the movement of the weapons, using all the identifying information on the firearms, the make, model, serial number, and information on the suspect,'' said Steve Raber, assistant special agent in charge of the ATF's Boston division. ''But some of these weapons are old. Our success depends on contacts with gunmakers.''
Initial searches of computer databases in Washington yesterday revealed nothing conclusive, Raber said. Agents are trying to contact the weapons' manufacturers, which they hope will lead them to the distributors, retail outlets, and to the ultimate buyers.
''If McDermott wasn't the one who bought the gun, we'll find out who did and how they disposed of it,'' Raber said.
Massachusetts now has one of the nation's toughest gun control laws. It is not clear, however, whether the weapons were obtained before those laws were enacted or the buyer illegally purchased them.
McDermott might have bought the guns from one of about 500 dealers in Massachusetts, police say, but he also might have inherited some of them, bought them from friends, in another state, on the Internet, or on the black market.
The heavyset man obtained a firearms identification card in Rockland in April 1989, Rockland police said. That card would have allowed McDermott to purchase the shotgun, but it would not have allowed him to buy the handgun or assault rifle.
A 1998 state gun control law, which prohibited the sale of all recently manufactured assault weapons, required him to renew the license in 1999. Had he done so, he would have likely been able to acquire all the weapons legally, but he could possess them only under severe restrictions.
Police from Weymouth to Haverhill, where McDermott lived after moving from an apartment in Rockland, said they had no knowledge that he renewed the permit. However, the Globe reported yesterday that police in Weymouth, where McDermott also had lived, issued a Class B firearms license to a Michael McDermott with a slightly different birth date.
If it is the same man, the license would have allowed McDermott to legally purchase a semiautomatic rifle. Despite the state's 1998 gun control law, McDermott could also have purchased an older AK-47 with that permit. Police have not determined the age of the weapon.
''The bottom line is how ever he got it, he was in illegal possession of it,'' said Lee Police Chief Ronald Glidden, who heads the state's Gun Control Advisory Board. ''You can't carry these weapons in public unless they're unloaded and in a case. They have to be specially located in your car.''
While prosecutors and police hunt for how McDermott obtained the weapons, gun control advocates are decrying the fact that the law still allows some assault rifles to be bought in this state. Some lawmakers are already calling for tougher restrictions.
State Senator Cheryl A. Jacques, the Needham Democrat who sponsored the assault weapons ban, yesterday suggested the killings could have been avoided had the House gone along with the Senate's call for a tougher gun law. The Senate would have banned all assault weapons, regardless of their manufacturing date.
Jacques said the House's action came after heavy lobbying by the Gun Owners Action League. She said she will file legislation in the next few days to reinstate the total ban, but added that the gun lobby is trying to gut the law even further.
A spokesman for the Gun Owners Action League lamented that the tragedy had become a public debate on gun control. Governor Paul Cellucci, who supported the House version of the 1998 law, cast doubt on efforts to tighten current laws.
''I don't know if you can get any tougher, particularly given what other states are doing and the ability of people to go to different states,'' Cellucci said.
The governor also called for reinstatement of capital punishment, but the newly elected House membership appears to have a majority of death penalty foes.
