WASHINGTON — Despite heavy lobbying from the White House and painstaking negotiations between some Republicans and Democrats, a pivotal amendment to expand background checks for gun purchases failed in the U.S. Senate Thursday.
Also failed in the gun package: a ban on assault weapons.
Both Colorado Democratic Sens. Michael Bennet and Mark Udall supported universal background checks, but neither supported the broader assault-weapons ban.
“Although I voted against this version of an assault weapons ban, I voted earlier today for strengthened background-check legislation,” said Udall, in a statement. “And I will vote for legislation that bans high-capacity magazines, because that more focused policy — similar to what passed in Colorado at the state level — achieves many of the same goals without unnecessarily infringing on Coloradans’ Second Amendment rights.”
Bennet, also in a statement, said that in Colorado “we support the Second Amendment.”
“We have also experienced two of the most tragic instances of gun violence in our country’s history,” he said. “The debate is not about challenging the rights of responsible gun owners, it is about keeping the wrong weapons out of the hands of the wrong people.”
The universal background checks amendment failed 54 to 46 and held the biggest promise in passing in light of the shootings at a Connecticut elementary school and at an Aurora movie theater last summer. The measure was a bipartisan compromise struck between Democrat Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia and GOP Sen. Pat Toomey of Pennsylvania after weeks of negotiations between both sides.
The bill probably would have failed in the GOP-controlled House anyway. President Barack Obama angrily spoke against the minority of the Senate that voted against the measure.
“Families that know unspeakable grief summoned the courage to petition their elected leaders –- not just to honor the memory of their children, but to protect the lives of all our children. And a few minutes ago, a minority in the United States Senate decided it wasn’t worth it,” he said, in an evening press conference.