The United States Senate's failure to pass common sense gun safety measures -- the Manchin-Toomey Amendment to expand background checks to keep guns away from underage or dangerous people, and amendments to ban assault weapons and high capacity magazines designed only to kill as many human beings as possible -- is a moral failure of great magnitude. Once again the safety of children has been sacrificed by political leaders in service to the gun lobby. As Americans do we value guns more than the lives of children? Do we really want to continue to have political leaders who kowtow to the threats and money and half-truths of the gun lobby and who think their political jobs are more important than the right of children to live and learn and grow up in safety?

Even before the tragic events at the Boston Marathon or before the explosion in West, Texas, this week was full of tragedy. The failure to pass the gun control measure hit me and many others particularly hard. I will remember who voted against common sense.

Is the issue of government interference, fear of the NRA, or the possibility of a tedious Republican filibuster really as important as a life?

Despite the loud voice of the National Rifle Association (NRA), scholars, experts on school safety, and teachers overwhelmingly disagree with turning schools into armed camps rather than places of nonviolent positive learning.

By Daniel Trotta NEW YORK, March 24 (Reuters) - Survivors of mass U.S. shootings have united to provide victims of future tragedies g...

If Americans had said no more after Columbine, there may never have been a Virginia Tech. If we had said no more after Aurora, there may never have been a Newtown, and maybe some of the more than 31,000 other American gun deaths that occur each year could have been prevented.

Gun laws are always going to change incrementally, at best, but that doesn't mean they aren't worth the effort of passing. "The problem is too big" should no longer been seen as an excuse. Marginal gains are better than no gains, magic bullets aside.

President Obama should be applauded for taking quick action to reduce the plague of gun violence in America in the wake of Sandy Hook. It will take strong and persistent leadership from the White House to get Congress to act on any of his proposals.