Washington (CNN) -- Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid said Tuesday that a proposed ban on semi-automatic firearms modeled after military assault weapons has no chance of passing the chamber, but he wants to ensure a vote on it will occur.
The proposal to update a similar 1994 ban that expired a decade later was one of four measures passed by the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to the Connecticut school massacre in December.
Reid, D-Nevada, told reporters he won't keep the proposed ban in gun legislation heading to the full Senate for consideration because including it would guarantee the measure would be blocked by a Republican filibuster.
A 1994 federal ban on certain types and configurations of guns included 19 kinds of military-style rifles and handguns. That ban expired in 2004. But the shooting deaths of 20 children and six adults at a Connecticut school has sparked new calls to ban such weapons. Click through this gallery to learn why military-style guns are important to many gun owners.
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The ban proposed by Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-California, and fiercely opposed by the National Rifle Association, Republicans and some Democrats would get fewer than 40 votes, Reid said, far below the threshold needed to defeat any filibuster or pass the Senate.
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Instead, Feinstein could propose the ban as an amendment to the gun legislation on the Senate floor in order to get a vote on it, Reid said.
President Barack Obama supports Feinstein's proposal.
The other proposals passed by the Judiciary Committee would expand background checks on gun sales, toughen laws against firearms trafficking and straw purchases, and design steps to improve school safety.
Reid's move doesn't come as a surprise as he has signaled for weeks he would only allow a vote on an assault weapons amendment.
"I have to get something on the floor," Reid said.
Feinstein said she was "disappointed" with Reid's decision, which he told her about in a private meeting on Monday.
She acknowledged that other provisions of a gun-control package might have a better chance of passing without the controversial assault weapons ban.
"The enemies on this are very powerful," Feinstein said. "I've known that all my life."
Nevertheless, Feinstein said the issue was very important to her and she would not stop pursuing it.
"I'm not going to lay down and play dead," she told CNN's "The Situation Room."
Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois, the Democratic whip, told CNN the proposed ban would make crafting broader legislation harder to accomplish.
"Harry is trying to put together a base package that will get 60 votes on the floor," Durbin said.
It is unclear, however, if any of the measures ultimately would clear the Senate.
"All these issues are important and I'm going to what I can to make sure we have a fair, sound debate on this," Reid said. "I want something to succeed."
Reid said he would schedule floor debate shortly after the Senate returns from its upcoming recess in April.
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CNN's Ted Barrett, Tom Cohen and Ashley Killough contributed to this report.
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"Every month or so I take my guns out to the range and shoot," says iReporter Christopher L. Kirkman, who owns a Heckler and Koch MR556A1. "It's thrilling, exciting and a great way to vent."
Austin Nikel and his brother used a shotgun to shoot clay targets during this outing in Wyoming in 2009. Other enthusiasts of military style rifles often use them to hunt deer and other game. But some states have banned the AR-15 and its .223 caliber for deer hunting.
In some home-protection situations, fans say, military-style rifles are generally more accurate than handguns. Rifles are generally easier to learn how to shoot, say military-style rifle owners.
Military style rifles are important to many gun collectors. iReporter Nathan Lee's firearms include a black AR-15 military-style rifle -- seen here second from the top. IReporter Hrothgar-01 said AR-15s are as much a part of the nation's history "as the muskets carried by pioneers" and "the rifles toted by doughboys in the trenches."
Gun rights activists celebrate a 2008 U.S. Supreme Court decision on whether the Constitution's Second Amendment right to "keep and bear arms" is fundamentally an individual or collective right. IReporter INGunowner's reasons for owning his AK-47 include his "fascination with the Second Amendment, which I view as a backstop protector of freedom."
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