As expected, the assault weapons ban introduced by Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California in January went down in flames Wednesday afternoon despite her call for the Senate to show some courage. The vote was 40-60.

The proposal, similar to the ban passed in 1994 that expired a decade later, would have prohibited the manufacture, sale and importation of semi-automatic military-style assault weapons. The bill would have excluded from the ban 2,258 specifically named hunting and sporting rifles as well as shotguns. It also would have limited the capacity of gun magazines to 10 rounds each.