WASHINGTON - Senate Republicans backed by a small band of rural-state Democrats scuttled the most far-reaching gun control legislation in two decades Wednesday, rejecting tighter background checks for buyers and a ban on assault weapons as they spurned pleas from families of victims of last winter's school massacre in Newtown, Conn.
"This effort isn't over," an angry President Barack Obama vowed at the White House moments after the defeat on one of his top domestic priorities. Surrounded by Newtown relatives, he said opponents of the legislation in both parties "caved to the pressure" of special interests.
A ban on high-capacity ammunition magazines also fell in a series of showdown votes four months after a gunman killed 20 elementary school children and six staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary.
A bid to loosen restrictions on concealed weapons carried across state lines was rejected, as well.
That last vote marked a rare defeat for the National Rifle Association on a day it generally triumphed over Obama, gun control advocates and many of the individuals whose lives have been affected by mass shootings in Connecticut and elsewhere.
Some of them watched from the spectator galleries above the Senate floor. "Shame on you," shouted one, Patricia Maisch, who was present two years ago when a gunman in Tucson, Ariz., killed six and wounded 13 others, including former Rep. Gabrielle Giffords.
Vice President Joe Biden gaveled the Senate back into order after the breach of decorum.
Gun control advocates, including Obama, had voiced high hopes for significant action after the Newtown shootings. But the lineup of possible legislation gradually dwindled to a focus on background checks, and in the end even that could not win Senate passage. Chances in the Republican-controlled House had seemed even slimmer.
By agreement of Senate leaders, a 60-vote majority was required for approval of any of the provisions brought to a vote.
The vote on the background check was 54-46, well short of the 60 votes needed to advance. Forty-one Republicans and five Democrats voted to reject the plan.
The proposed ban on assault weapons commanded 40 votes; the bid to block sales of high capacity ammunition clips drew 46.
The NRA-backed proposal on concealed carry permits got 57.
In the hours before the key vote on background checks, Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., bluntly accused the NRA of making false claims about the expansion of background checks that he and Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., were backing.
"Where I come from in West Virginia, I don't know how to put the words any plainer than this: That is a lie. That is simply a lie," he said, accusing the organization of telling its supporters that friends, neighbors and some family members would need federal permission to transfer ownership of firearms to one another.
The NRA did not respond immediately to the charge, but issued a statement after the vote that restated the claim. The proposal "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," said a statement from Chris Cox, a top lobbyist for the group.
Even before the votes, the administration signaled the day's events would not be the last word on an issue that Democratic leaders shied away from for nearly two decades until Obama picked up on it after the Newtown shootings.
Biden's presence was a purely symbolic move since each proposal required a 60-vote majority to pass and he would not be called upon to break any ties. Democratic aides said in advance the issue would be brought back to the Senate in the future, giving gun control supporters more time to win over converts to change the outcome.
Obama, standing near Giffords and relatives of other shooting victims, said at the White House public opinion was strongly behind expanded background checks. Despite that, opponents of the legislation were "worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money" at the next election, he said.
"So all in all this was a pretty shameful day for Washington," he added.
The Manchin-Toomey amendment's failure may put into play an amendment offered by Sen. Tom Coburn, R-Okla.
Coburn's amendment emphasizes access to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System and established penalties for establishing a national firearm registry. Coburn said he believes his amendment may get a vote Thursday.
''Under my approach, gun owners are treated as part of the solution rather than part of the problem,'' Coburn said prior to Wednesday's vote. ''Instead of harassing gun owners with new taxes and other burdens, my bill gives law-abiding citizens the tools they need to make sure they aren't going to transfer a firearm to someone who will be a threat to themselves or others. For example, under my plan the process of confirming a buyer is not on the NICS list of prohibited buyers - the ''do not buy list'' - will be as simple as using a smart phone app or printing a boarding pass from your home computer.''
Sen. Jim Inhofe, R-Okla., said efforts should be made to reduce violent crime but not by compromising constitutional rights.
''Many efforts were made today to address gun violence, but a majority of the restrictions presented were all predicated on one assumption, that somehow we think that the criminal element will single out this one law to comply with,'' Inhofe said. ''Instead, amendments such as the one to ban assault weapons and another to expanding the gun background check system would have only further restricted firearms for law-abiding Oklahomans.''
Original Print Headline: Senators reject two key gun control measures
Follow the gun debate
Read complete coverage of the issue.
Gun Debate
A former Australian government leader has blamed the gun culture in the United States for the shooting death of an Australian baseball player in Oklahoma and condemned America's lax firearm controls as a corruptive influence around the world.
