54-46

The Manchin-Toomey Gun bill has failed by a vote of 54 to 46. Let the hand wringing and recriminations begin!

As I have said previously, this would be a great example of "losing the argument" but still managing to be right. Gun safety advocates should take heart that there are several things to be positive about after the vote today. Regardless of what happens from this point forward, it's going to work out for the best, with likely sacrifices along the way, unfortunately.

Newtown struck a very deep wound in the heart of America. My hope is that, even without new laws, there won't be another shooting on this scale, at least in the near term. People are going to start taking more of an interest in their local, young men who fit the same profile as Adam Lanza and be more aware of allowing them to have guns and play 'Call of Duty" for hours and hours. Perhaps I'm being naive but I've certainly seen it in my neck of the woods and I hope it lasts.

Yet, the regular, every day gun violence will still continue and now we have 46 senators on record as not even supporting expanded background checks. When something like this happens, it usually brings out the worst in people and we have certainly seen that from these senators and the gun rights lobby. It's a short term victory for them with long term ruin on the horizon. America is not with them on this one and they are going to pay a very steep penalty in 2014 and 2016. There will likely be many gun deaths between now and the next election and voters are not going to be happy about it. The chance for the president to revisit this issue again in 2015 is there.

And, if there is another Newtown or something like it, the next gun bill will make the gun lobby wish they had gone along with this one so they could at least look like they were trying to solve the problem. Another Newtown or Aurora means more people added to the gun safety lobby and that means you can say hello again to an assault weapons ban and ammo clip limitations with far more support than there is today.

I hope it doesn't come to that and we can, at least, turn our attention away from guns and towards mental health and how much parents really and truly are sucking right now. In the final analysis, that's why these shooting sprees happen. Parents are fucking morons and let their mentally ill children have guns. Of course, fixing this doesn't do much to the every day violence that occurs from guns and isn't much comfort to those who have lost loved ones in this manner. Maybe this will be the kick in the ass the federal government needs to start putting away more people who fail background checks.