President Obama, joined by former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, Vice President Joe Biden, and families of gun violence victims. (Getty Images)
A bipartisan measure that would have expanded background checks on gun sales was defeated in the Senate today after its backers could not come up with enough votes to overcome a filibuster. The amendment, developed by Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) and Joe Manchin (D-Va.), would have expanded background checks to include purchases made at gun shows and from online merchants, as well as tightening restrictions on convicted criminals from purchasing firearms.
Toomey and Manchin, both of whom have some of the highest ratings from the National Rifle Association, needed 60 votes to end debate on their amendment. But the final tally, which was presided over by Vice President Joe Biden, was 54-46. The Senate gallery was also filled with survivors of victims of mass shootings in Newtown, Conn.; Aurora, Colo.; and Tucson, Ariz.
The NRA, which true to form characterized the Toomey-Manchin amendement as brazen attack on an 18th-century definition of gun ownership, gloated in the measure’s defeat. “This amendment would have criminalized certain private transfers of firearms between honest citizens, requiring lifelong friends, neighbors and some family members to get federal government permission to exercise a fundamental right or face prosecution,” Chris W. Cox, the organization’s top lobbyist, said in a news release. “The NRA will continue to work with Republicans and Democrats who are committed to protecting our children in schools, prosecuting violent criminals to the fullest extent of the law, and fixing our broken mental health system. We are grateful for the hard work and leadership of those Senators who chose to pursue meaningful solutions to our nation’s most pressing problems.”
Some Senate Republicans are pursuing an alternative gun control bill that would increase penalties against people known as “straw buyers” by making proxy purchases for people who are not permitted to own firearms. But that bill would do nothing to increase background checks.
President Obama, who supported the Toomey-Manchin deal, will make remarks on its defeat at 5:30 p.m., the White House said.
UPDATE, 6 p.m.: President Obama reacted to today’s Senate vote with visible disgust. “We had an obligation to try,” he said. “Too many senators failed theirs.”
Obama was joined in the White House Rose Garden by Biden, who presided over the vote on the Toomey-Manchin deal; former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords (D-Ariz.), who survived a gunshot wound to the head in the January 2011 shooting massacre in Tucson; and many of the families that sat in the Senate gallery today.
The president was introduced by Mark Barden, whose seven-year-old son, Daniel, was among the 20 students killed last December when a gunman entered Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
Obama was unsparing in his criticism of the Senate’s action. “All in all this was a pretty shameful day for Washington,” he said. “When Newtown happened I met with these families, I spoke to the community and I said ‘Something must be different. We’re going to have to change.’ That’s what the whole country said. I’m assuming these are not empty words.”
He also said that the political sway held by the NRA and other organizations that lobby for looser gun laws will only be repelled by popular demand for increased gun control.
“They’re better organized, they’re never financed, they’ve stayed at it longer,” Obama said. “The American People are going to have to sustain some passion about this. I believe we’re going to be able to get this done. Sooner or later, we’re going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it, and so do the American people.”
