The background check measure, which was seen as the key to passing legislation to address the assault weapons used in a spade of recent mass shootings, failed to get support when it was put to a vote in the Senate on Wednesday.
The amendment failed to pass by a vote of 54 to 46, falling short of the necessary 60 votes needed to break a filibuster.
In addition to failing to pass the background check, which would have expanded the current check system to cover sales of weapons on the internet and at gun shows, other key measures also failed, making any future progress on gun control legislation extremely uncertain.
"Shame on you!" two women shouted in the chamber, where victims of the Sandy Hook shootings were watching. One of the women to shout her disappointment was Patricia Maisch, who grabbed the third clip from the gunman who opened fire at then Rep. Gabby Giffords in the Tuscon, Arizona shooting in 2011.
Giffords has been working to pass guncontrol legislation with her husband, Mark Kelly. The other woman was Lori Hass, whose daughter was injured in the shooting at Virginia Tech six years ago.
"I think we're going to continue to work for the right thing to be done," said Peter Read, whose daughter, Mary, was among the 33 people killed in the Virginia Tech shooting. "I think the senators who voted against this will have to live with that vote, and I think they're going to have to account for themselves."
President Barack Obama also spoke out about the vote. He made a speech from the Rose Garden on Wednesday.
"All in all, this is a pretty shameful day for Washington," Obama said. "The American people are trying to figure out, how can something that has 90 percent support not happen?"
The background check measure was put together by the bipartisan team of Senator Joe Manchin (D-W.V.) and Senator Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and was the first legislation in decades to address the mass killings that have horrified the country in the last few years, including the shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, where 20 children and six educators were killed, and the shooting in Aurora, Colorado, where 12 people were killed in a theater. It was seen as key legislation because it represented a bipartisan agreement in a highly polarizing debate.
California's ban on assault weapons also failed, with the vote falling 40 to 60. Senator Dianne Feinstein, the sponsor of the bill, made an argument for the passage, already steeled for it to fail.
"I know how this is going to end, and the despair and the dimay of the families standing out there whose safety we need to protect, and we don't do it," said Feinstein, as she argued that lawmakers with six year terms should bear the tough vote. "Show some guts."
Democratic aides conceded privately that the rest of the bill would be likely to fail as well.
Republicans who voted against the bill offered another alternative bill, which also failed, with a vote of 52 to 48.
"The goal was to see if we can find a way to make it a little bit more difficult for people who have no legal right to have a gun for them to obtain it," Toomey said. "That was the goal."
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