President Obama, along with Sandy Hook families, Vice President Joe Biden, and former Rep. Gabby Giffords, responded to the U.S. Senate failing to pass gun-control legislation by vowing to continue the fight for background checks. 
 
 WASHINGTON — Sen. Pat Toomey lent his name to the most meaningful federal gun bill in two decades but failed to change Republican colleagues' minds. The political pressure outweighed overwhelming public support, even the pleas of Sandy Hook Elementary School parents. 
 
 With a single vote Wednesday afternoon, the gun control legislation died, ending days of drama centered on the Pennsylvania politician with conservative bona fides. 
 
 A bipartisan deal on background checks, considered the most likely new gun law to pass, fell six votes short of the 60 needed to clear a procedural hurdle in the U.S. Senate. The vote was 54-46. Subsequent efforts, including a restriction on larger ammunition magazines, also failed in later voting. 
 
 An angry President Barack Obama stood outside the White House with former Arizona Congresswoman Gabby Giffords, a gunshot survivor, and the families of the 20 children and six adults killed at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn. 
 
 "All in all, this was a pretty shameful day for Washington," Obama said, insisting the effort "is not over. Sooner or later, we are going to get this right. The memories of these children demand it. And so do the American people." 
 
 Mark Barden, the father of a victim of the Newtown shootings, said as Obama looked on: "Our hearts are broken. Our spirit is not. We always knew this would be a long road. We don't have the luxury of turning back." 
 
 But Toomey, who threw his political weight into working with his Senate friend Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., on a compromise to expand background checks to commercial firearms sales over the Internet and at gun shows, said that for him it's time to move on. 
 
 "I did the best I could. I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken and these things happen," Toomey told The Morning Call immediately after the vote on his amendment. "It's always worth it to do the right thing … no regrets." 
 
 The fiscally conservative Lehigh County Republican arrived in the Senate three years ago focused on economic issues, and said Wednesday that's where he will be redirecting his energies now. 
 
 "We have a lot of other issues we have to deal with," Toomey said. "Chief among them is getting our fiscal house in order. I'll be getting back to that." 
 
 Though he stuck his neck out for no tangible end result, his bipartisan effort will be remembered not as a failure, pundits said, but as an attempt to do something amid political gridlock. Obama again praised Toomey and Manchin by name. 
 
 T.J. Rooney, the former chairman of Pennsylvania's Democratic Party, said he was proud of Pennsylvania's Republican senator. 
 
 "You cannot and should not take away the fact that our senator did something out of the box and extraordinary and is deserving of our praise for that," he said. "He shouldn't feel it's a fool's errand or a loss. His courage is a symbol for what is possible." 
 
 D.C.-based consultant John Brabender, who has run Rick Santorum's political campaigns, said the net result for Toomey will be positive. 
 
 "Even within the Republican Party, many will look at him as a commonsense Republican, and I think there will be moderate Republicans in the eastern side of the state who will say, 'I actually have more in common with him now.' That means he looks at every issue one at a time, instead of always taking the Republican position, and a lot of voters respect that," Brabender said. 
 
 But there are gun-rights Republicans in Pennsylvania and elsewhere who are angry with Toomey, and he started the fence-mending even before Wednesday's vote. He had kept an open dialogue with those in opposition throughout the pre-deal negotiating process, and he gave two pre-vote interviews to conservative publications, one in-state and one national. 
 
 On the Senate floor, several Republicans cast their votes against Toomey after patting him on the back, as if to show there were no hard feelings. 
 
 Vice President Joe Biden, who wrote gun control legislation during the Clinton era, presided over Wednesday's vote. New Jersey Democrat Frank Lautenberg, absent most of the year due to serious illness, was wheeled in to vote. But neither one's presence was enough to pass the amendment. 
 
 Neither were the families of shooting victims at Sandy Hook; the Aurora, Colo., movie theater; Virginia Tech; and Tucson, Ariz. All watched from the gallery as their lawmakers voted. 
 
 When the Toomey/Manchin amendment failed on the very first vote, Patricia Maisch — who had knocked an ammunition clip out of the hand of the man trying to assassinate Congresswoman Giffords — yelled down at the senators, "Shame on you." ||||| Guns: Did Newtown Change Anything?: The Times’s Michael Luo discusses whether attitudes toward guns have changed in America since the Newtown shooting, even though legislation died in the Senate this week. 
 
 WASHINGTON — The last whimpers of the gun control debate in the Senate played out in anticlimactic fashion on Thursday as lawmakers began the process of formally moving on. 
 
 All that remained of a broad package of measures representing the most serious changes to the nation’s gun laws in 20 years were two amendments: one that would address mental health care, and another that would penalize states that divulge information about gun owners except under very specific circumstances like a criminal investigation. 
 
 Both passed overwhelmingly, the only two gun-related measures to clear the Senate’s 60-vote threshold for passage. The vote on the amendments has no practical effect, since the underlying legislation has no immediate prospect of passing. 
 
 Despite the push from proponents of stricter gun regulations, the amendments that received the most support in two days of voting were not the ones that tightened restrictions on weapons purchases, but the ones that loosened them. 
 
 Fifty-seven senators voted on Wednesday to essentially nullify state laws that prohibit carrying concealed weapons. Fifty-six senators voted to restore gun ownership rights to veterans who have had them taken away. 
 
 In the end, only 54 voted for a compromise plan to expand background checks for gun buyers, 46 voted to ban high-capacity magazines and 40 voted to renew a ban on certain military-style rifles. 
 
 While supporters of plans to strengthen the regulation of gun purchases, including Senator Harry Reid, the majority leader, vowed to keep the issue alive, the growing consensus on Capitol Hill was that any effort to resuscitate the legislation was far away. 
 
 Senate Democrats believe that their best option is to put their bill in the procedural equivalent of a deep freeze. Mr. Reid is expected to exercise an option that allows him to put the bill in an indefinite hold so he can bring it back up later. 
 
 “Make no mistake: this debate is not over,” Mr. Reid said Thursday. “This is not the end of the fight. Republicans are in an unsustainable position — crosswise with 9 out of 10 Americans.” 
 
 After the series of gun control amendments went down to defeat on Wednesday, Senator Charles E. Schumer of New York, who played a central role in the early efforts to bring together a bipartisan coalition to support stronger background checks, said he did not see a viable path forward in the near term, but remained optimistic about the months ahead. 
 
 Asked on Thursday what the next step for the gun bill could be, the Senate’s No. 2 Democrat, Richard J. Durbin of Illinois, responded, “That’s a good question.” 
 
 The leading Republican who joined with Democrats to forge a bipartisan background check bill, Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, told a local newspaper that he was ready to deal with other matters. “I did the best I could,” he told The Morning Call of Allentown. “I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken, and these things happen.” 
 
 Mark Glaze, the director of Mayors Against Illegal Guns, a group founded by Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg that has gone after lawmakers with aggressive advertising campaigns, said Thursday that efforts by his organization and others would not cease. 
 
 “Today and for the foreseeable future, mayors and supporters and survivors and some pretty outraged citizens will be letting senators know they’re paying attention,” he said. “And their memories are long.” 
 
 Senate Democrats were also looking at what options they might have to force a change in Senate rules that would make it harder for Republicans to subject everything to a 60-vote threshold instead of a simple majority vote. 
 
 “In matters like this, the majority ought to rule,” said Senator Barbara Mikulski, Democrat of Maryland. 
 
 But the Senate was already preparing to take up other issues. Next on the agenda: a bill that would allow states to collect sales tax for items sold online. 
 
 But in the Senate, with its tangled knot of procedural hurdles, little moves forward without a fight. 
 
 Senator Tom Coburn, Republican of Oklahoma, is preventing his colleagues from quickly taking up another matter because he objected when Democrats asked for a routine unanimous consent agreement to dispense with the gun bill. He said Thursday that he would not cooperate because Democrats refused to put his background check bill, which is opposed by gun control groups, up for a vote. 
 
 “There’s only one way to get background checks, and they don’t want to vote on it,” he said. ||||| Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid Harry Mason ReidAmendments fuel resentments within Senate GOP Donald Trump is delivering on his promises and voters are noticing Danny Tarkanian wins Nevada GOP congressional primary MORE (D-Nev.) announced that the Senate would put aside the gun control bill to start work on other legislative matters. 
 
 “It’s only a matter of time before we bring this anti-gun-violence measure back to the floor for a vote,” Reid said Thursday. “The stand of the Republicans is not sustainable.” 
 
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 Reid said Democrats knew passing gun control measures would be an uphill battle. 
 
 "We knew all along that efforts to pass stronger background checks and keep guns out of the hands of criminals wouldn’t be easy," Reid said. "But it's worth the effort." 
 
 Democrats called for stricter gun laws after a gunman killed 20 first-graders and six educators at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., in December. 
 
 For the past two weeks the Senate has been working on the Safe Communities, Safe Schools Act, S.649, which would expand background checks on gun purchases, crack down on gun trafficking and beef up security in schools. On Wednesday, a bipartisan amendment from Sens. Joe Manchin Joseph (Joe) ManchinOvernight Energy — Presented by Chevron — EPA proposes biofuel mandate increase | US wants allies to stop Iran oil imports | Cities' climate suits get tossed The Hill's Morning Report — Sponsored by Better Medicare Alliance — Washington grapples with civility, protests in charged political times Trump, midterm pressures complicate immigration fight MORE (D-W.Va.) and Pat Toomey (R-Pa.) failed on a 54-46 vote, short of the needed 60 votes. 
 
 Only four Republicans joined most Democrats in supporting the measure, which could have served as a compromise to move the larger gun control bill forward. 
 
 “Yesterday, the families of gun violence victims watched as Republicans defeated a common-sense proposal to expand background checks that has the support of 90 percent of Americans,” Reid said. “Republicans once again filibustered a common-sense proposal.” 
 
 Reid said that tabling the bill would allow the Senate to skip procedural hurdles when it returns to the measure after more negotiations off the floor. 
 
 "Make no mistake, this debate is not over. In fact, this fight is just beginning," Reid said. "I've spoken with the president. He and I agree that the best way to keep working towards passing a background check bill is to hit a pause and freeze the background check bill where it is." 
 
 Reid filed a cloture motion on the Marketplace Fairness Act, S. 743, a bill that would allow states to collect online sales taxes. The Senate is likely to begin votes on that bill next week.
– Given that the gun legislation moving through the Senate had been stripped of pretty much every reform advocates considered meaningful, Harry Reid today yanked what remained from consideration, reports the Hill. But he promised the Senate would revisit the proposal to tighten background checks after this indefinite "pause and freeze" period. "It is only a matter of time," said Reid, who ended up voting no on the measure himself yesterday to make this legislative maneuver possible. "The stand of the Republicans is not sustainable.” Given that only four Republicans bucked their party on the vote, however, Reid and Democrats have much work to do. One thing they're looking at, according to the New York Times: Trying to change Senate rules so that the legislation would need only a majority of votes to pass rather than a filibuster-proof 60. Republican Pat Toomey, who helped craft the amendment on background checks, tells the Morning Call of Allentown that he has "no regrets" about the failed effort. "I did the best I could," he says. "I wish it had passed, but the Senate has spoken and these things happen."