Obama: Republicans decide 'it wasn't worth it' to protect America's children

WASHINGTON (AP)

President Barack Obama says the Senate’s opposition to a bill that would have expanded background checks for gun buyers marks a “shameful day for Washington.”

He says a minority of senators decided “it wasn’t worth it” to protect the nation’s children.

Obama spoke in the Rose Garden shortly after the Senate vote. It marked a major blow to the gun control push Obama started in the wake of December’s shooting at a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.

The president pinned the blame for the measures’ failure on Republicans, though five Democrats also opposed the plan.

Obama was introduced by the father of a 7-year-old killed in the shooting.

Other families joined him in the Rose Garden, along with former Arizona Rep. Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head in 2011.