I said in an earlier post that the reasons the Senate bill failed are ineffective leadership by Obama, and pervasive skepticism among Americans that Congress can fix anything, and/or growing distrust of government. That statistic is an example:

Sure, 90% of a few thousand people sampled told pollsters that they support expanded background checks. But even though the sample probably was statistically valid, it didn't translate into 90% of Americans willing to work to get the bill passed by forming groups, writing or personally lobbying Senators and Reps, etc. They didn't care enough. Conversely, just three days after the sequester started screwing up air travel, enough Americans rose up in protest so that funding was miraculously restored for air traffic control.