The rampage evoked images of other workplace sprees in San Francisco, Atlanta and Honolulu. Those tragedies heightened calls for stricter gun laws. But this time, the shootings may have actually exposed the limits of the law. Massachusetts, after all, is the toughest gun state in the nation, the only one with mandatory licensing and registration. And yet none of that stopped McDermott, who pleaded not guilty last week. At one point, he had been issued a license for a shotgun and a semiautomatic pistol; it wasn’t yet clear where he got the other gun, an AK-47-style assault rifle that did most of the damage in the assault. Tougher national standards might have made a difference. But even anti-gun activists agree that when a guy makes up his mind to kill for no good reason, there’s not much any law can do about it.
McDermott had been planning his moment. In addition to the three guns he used, police found a semiautomatic rifle in a kind of portable coat closet near his desk. His style was vengeful. He shot Rose Manfredi, 49, twice in the legs, then blasted through her head as she tried to crawl away. Twenty-nine-year-old Jennifer Bragg Capobianco had returned that day from maternity leave; she died slumped over her keyboard.
McDermott hardly stood out in the unconventional techie world. “I don’t think he was any weirder that many other of the people who work there,” a former employee says. But the former Navy submariner was a regular visitor to explosives Web sites. (Police found bomb-making ingredients at his home.) He was supposed to be taking anti-depressant medication. He apparently fired off some rounds in a nearby wood on Christmas Eve, alarming local cops, who searched for him the next day. They didn’t find him. Instead, McDermott arrived at work after the holiday, early and angry. For him and seven victims, it was the last day at the office.
