Obama's Statement After the Senate's Defeat of Gun-Related Measures That's how President Obama characterized the shockingly cowardly act by which the United States Senate betrayed the victims of the Newtown massacre and every American who has been killed by gun violence since then. Ninety-percent of Americans support expanded background checks, but 45 percent of the Senate killed a bill that would have provided that expansion - without infringing in the slightest way on the Second Amendment. Mr. Obama was as angry and as clear as I've ever seen him. He said "the gun lobby and its allies willfully lied" about the background checks bill, which was a bipartisan proposal by two senators who are strong on gun rights - Senator Pat Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and Senator Joe Manchin, Democrat of West Virginia. Mr. Obama said, rightly, that "there were no coherent arguments" by opponents of the bill, which included four Democrats in the Senate. Their claim, for example, that the bill would have created a national registry of gunowners was a bald-faced lie. The bill actually created a new felony for using background checks to create a registry. Who are we here to represent? Mr. Obama said. I've heard folks say that having families of victims lobby for this legislation was somehow misplaced. A prop somebody called them. Emotional blackmail some outlets said. Are they serious? Do we really think that thousands of families who lives have been shattered by gun violence do not have a right to weigh in on this issue. Mark Barden, whose 7-year-old son, Daniel, was murdered at the Sandy Hook Elementary School, preceded Mr. Obama at the lectern in the Rose Garden. "What happened in Newtown can happen anywhere,"Mr. Barden said. In an instant any dad in America could be in my shoes. Mr. Barden and Mr. Obama said they had not given up hope that America's lawmakers can be persuaded to finally enact sensible, constitutional, unthreatening gun regulations. I admire their optimism. I don't share it.