In what was seen to be the best hope for gun control advocates, a bipartisan background checks amendment has now been killed. The amendment, created by Republican Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) and Democratic Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), failed to get pass a Republican-led filibuster. The cloture vote passed in 54-46, six votes short of the sixty needed to break the filibuster. Some Democrats, including Mark Begich (D-AK), voted against cloture. There were some who were undecided until the last moment. One of those, Joe Donnelly (D-IN), ended up voting for the cloture. However, some like Max Baucus (D-MT) voted against cloture. One interesting vote was by Majority Leader Harry Reid, who does have an “B” rating from the National Rifle Association, who voted against cloture. Leader Reid had voiced support for the amendment, so it is unknown why he voted against it.
UPDATE: Sen. Harry Reid voted against cloture so that he could bring it back up. If he were to vote for it, when it failed he couldn’t bring it back up.