Yesterday [Thursday], the Senate voted against expanding background checks for gun purchases – one day after the latest mass shooting that left 14 people dead in San Bernadino, California.
Thursday's 50-to-47 vote underscored the political gridlock over gun control in Washington.
The measure would have required background checks for all gun purchases online and at gun shows.
Oregon's U-S Representative Peter Defazio says in the last Congress, the Senate came very close to closing gun show loopholes and tightening background checks but failed.
Defazio: "So we introduced a bill virtually identical to the Senate bill in the House. Because we thought we were going to actually do something. It didn't happen. We have re-introduced that bill but there have been no hearings, no discussion, from the Republican side on dealing with that."
Defazio says yesterday's [Thursday's] bill was the same proposal the Senate rejected in the months after the 2012 mass shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. A proposal that would ban gun sales to persons the government suspects may be associated with terror organizations also failed.
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