An angry US president Barack Obama has rounded on America's gun lobby, accusing it of lying and intimidating a sufficient number of senators to kill proposals to tighten gun laws.
"They claimed that it would create some sort of big brother gun registry even though the Bill did the opposite," he said on the White House lawn, standing with victims of gun violence, after a Bill to increase pre-purchase background checks on would-be owners was shot down in the US Senate.
“This legislation, in fact, outlawed any registry, plain and simple, right there in the text. But that didn’t matter. And unfortunately this pattern of spreading untruths about this legislation served a purpose . . . Those lies upset an intense minority of gun owners and that in turn intimidated a lot of senators.”
The president described the defeat of the Bill as “a shameful day for Washington”.
Despite emotional pleas from families of victims of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, and broad public support, the plan to extend background checks for sales made online and at gun shows failed on a 54-46 vote, six short of the 60 votes it needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the Senate.
Other measures – including a proposal to ban rapid-firing "assault" weapons like the one used in Connecticut and a limit on ammunition clips – also failed in Senate votes.
– (IT foreign desk)