Senate blocks gun-control legislation

The Senate voted 54-46 in favor of gun control legislation yesterday, short of the 60 votes required for passage.

Pres. Barack Obama called it "a shameful day for Washington" in a speech after the bill's defeat. "But this effort is not over...I see this as just round one."

Even though a recent poll shows 91 percent of Americans support expanding background checks, new gun control measures are proving to be difficult politically.

"The fizzling of gun control, at least for now, underscores how drastically the debate has moved toward the libertarian, anti-regulation pole," reports Paul Barrett in Bloomberg Businessweek. "The NRA backed comprehensive background checks as recently as 1999. Today, the NRA and most Republicans in Congress oppose screening all commercial gun sales for criminals, fugitives, and the severely mentally ill because they claim doing so will lead to national firearm registration. A registry, this slippery-slope argument goes, will then facilitate gun confiscation."

Barrett joins The Daily Circuit to discuss where the debate will go next.