U.S. Senate blocks background checks for gun sales
A major blow to Obama’s drive to curb firearms in wake of massacre
WASHINGTON — The U.S. Senate blocked bipartisan legislation Wednesday aimed at tightening restrictions on the sale of firearms, a huge defeat for President Barack Obama and a rejection of personal pleas by families of the victims of last winter’s school shooting in Connecticut.
An attempt to ban militarystyle assault weapons and a ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines were also rejected in a series of showdown votes four months after a gunman killed 20 schoolchildren and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
The background check measure commanded a majority of senators, 54-46, but that was well short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Forty-one Republicans and five Democrats sided together to scuttle the plan.
Speaking to the nation after the vote, Obama said a minor- ity of the senators decided “it wasn’t worth it” to protect the nation’s children.
“All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” Obama said.
The vote was also a jarring blow to the drive to curb firearms sparked by December’s massacre of 26 children and staff at the school in Newtown, Connecticut.
Obama has made enactment of greater curbs a priority on his domestic agenda in the months since the massacre, making several trips outside Washington to try to build support. Last week, he travelled to Connecticut, and he invited several parents to fly back to Washington with him aboard Air Force One so they could personally lobby lawmakers.
Some of the parents of the Sandy Hook victims watched the votes from the spectators’ gallery. They were joined by relatives of victims of other mass shootings in Arizona, Virginia and Colorado. The roll call was also a victory for the nation’s most powerful gun lobby, the National Rifle Association, which opposed the plan as an ineffective infringement on gun rights.
The proposal would have required background checks for all transactions at gun shows and online. Currently they must occur for sales handled by licensed gun dealers.