Carolyn McCarthy, Who Turned a Gunfire Massacre Into a Crusade, Dies at 81

New York|Carolyn McCarthy, Who Turned a Gunfire Massacre Into a Crusade, Dies at 81

Carolyn McCarthy, a former nine-term congresswoman from Long Island who became a champion of gun regulation after her family was shattered by a deranged shooter on a commuter train — transforming herself from a nurse and homemaker into a national symbol of unflinching, if largely frustrated, advocacy — died on Thursday at her home in Fort Myers, Fla. She was 81.

Cecelia J. Prewett, a former communications director for Ms. McCarthy in Washington, confirmed the death but did not give the cause. Ms. McCarthy was found to have lung cancer in 2013.

On the night of Dec. 7, 1993, a Christmas tree lying in her driveway was Ms. McCarthy’s first sign that something had gone wrong. She returned late to her house in Mineola, 20 miles east of Manhattan on Long Island, after attending a Christmas concert with a friend. There, to her puzzlement and slight annoyance, lay the tree. Her husband, Dennis, and their son, Kevin, were supposed to have taken it inside and put it up.

Father and son both worked for Prudential Securities, a financial services firm in Manhattan. They were heading home together that evening on the 5:33 Long Island Rail Road train out of Pennsylvania Station. As the train approached the Merillon Avenue station, one stop from Mineola, a Jamaican immigrant on board, Colin Ferguson, reached into a bag, pulled out a 9-millimeter semiautomatic gun with a 15-round magazine and began firing. After emptying one ammo clip, he inserted another, and emptied it, too. Finally, as he tried to reload once more, three passengers overpowered him.