police say he carried a sawed-off shotgun with cryptic messages. steve centanni, what were the messages on this gun, steve? >> reporter: well, bill, as you know aaron alexis did buy this remington shotgun just saturday in virginia not far from here. into the wooden stock of that shotgun, someone had carved the words were better this way and o my elf, two different inscriptions. the second one particularly puzzling, authorities don't know what either of these mean, my elf could refer to a computer program he might have been familiar with or a low-frequency wave as he had complained to police when he called hem in august in rhode island that he thought people were trying to penetrate him with microwave devices. so that could be one part of this. as we know, he did have a history of mental troubles, he had a spotty history when he was in the navy. he did have some run-ins with police, some of them involving