The two suspects in the Boston Marathon bombings were not licensed to have the firearms they used in several shootouts with police on Friday, Reuters reported Sunday night.

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The news that the suspects were not authorized to own firearms will likely add fuel to calls for tougher gun laws – an issue that was put on the back-burner last week after the Senate blocked the central elements of a gun-control package backed by President Obama.

Because Massachusetts state law bars handgun ownership for those younger than 21, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, age 26, was the only brother who could have obtained a license from the town of Cambridge, Mass., where he lived. But he didn't take that step, Dan Riviello, spokesman for the Cambridge Police Department, told Reuters.

"There is no record of him having a license to carry," Riviello said, according to the news service.

Massachusetts state law allows residents under 21 to have rifles, but only those weapons holding 10 rounds of ammunition or less, and only then if the holder has a police-issued ID card. Several local jurisdictions where the younger brother Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, 19, has lived and studied told Reuters they have no record of issuing him such a card.

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Police say Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev went on a deadly shooting spree Thursday and Friday, killing a university policeman before confronting local officers in a wild firefight in the middle of a Watertown, Mass., street that left the elder brother dead and a transit policeman injured.

In between those two attacks, the brothers allegedly carjacked a motorist at gunpoint, later releasing the unnamed victim unharmed.

Dzhokhar Tsarnaev then led law enforcers on an exhaustive manhunt, which ended in his capture Friday night after yet another dramatic shootout with police.

He remains in a Boston hospital in serious but stable condition, according to the head of the Boston police, recovering from injuries that may include a self-induced gunshot wound to his neck.