Despite being supported by 90 percent of Americans, the recent amendment proposing background checks for gun-buyers came up short against the 60-vote threshold needed to carry through the legislation and caused much upset among its supporters.
Gabrielle Giffords who formed a political committee that supports candidates who back gun restrictions with husband, Mark Kelly, and was herself a victim of a shooting in 2011, said that she was “furious”, blaming senators for giving into fear and blocking common-sense legislation by refusing to support the amendment.
"I will not rest until we have righted the wrong these senators have done,” she said, “and until we have changed our laws so we can look parents in the face and say: We are trying to keep your children safe," Huffington Post reveals.
"Over two years ago, when I was shot point-blank in the head, the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing. Four months ago, 20 first-graders lost their lives in a brutal attack on their school, and the U.S. Senate chose to do nothing," Giffords wrote. "It's clear to me that if members of the U.S. Senate refuse to change the laws to reduce gun violence, then we need to change the members of the U.S. Senate."
Expressing his disappointment in the senate at his recent press release, Obama blamed the amendment failure on politics, Huffington Post reports, saying, "There were no coherent arguments as to why we wouldn’t do this. It came down to politics -- the worry that that vocal minority of gun owners would come after them in future elections. They worried that the gun lobby would spend a lot of money and paint them as anti-Second Amendment."
He continued on to reassure the public and urge them to make their voices heard in the 2014 midterm elections, the Washington Examiner reveals. “Even without Congress, my administration will keep doing everything it can to protect more of our communities,” Obama insisted. “We’re going to address the barriers that prevent states from participating in the existing background check system. We’re going to give law enforcement more information about lost and stolen guns so it can do its job. We’re going to help to put in place emergency plans to protect our children in their schools.”
“[I]f this Congress refuses to listen to the American people and pass common-sense gun legislation, then the real impact is going to have to come from the voters.”
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