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Still, what happens now?

In baseball terms, because Reid used that procedural trick of switching his vote to "no" the bill sits in the on-deck circle until an opportunity arises to bring it back to a floor vote.

That opportunity will come the next time there's a mass shooting. And there WILL be a next time.

Under such circumstances the bill can pretty much be brought back up for an immediate vote. There won't be ~4 months or so for public opinion to settle and to allow cooler heads to prevail. It'll be rammed through quickly (if this vote were taken right after Newtown the three Dems would have stayed with their party and there would have been several GOP crossovers), then dumped on the House.

"It'll be rammed through quickly (if this vote were taken right after Newtown the three Dems would have stayed with their party and there would have been several GOP crossovers), then dumped on the House."

Interesting isn't it? The senate was designed as a cool, detached deliberative body with six year terms to prevent rash, momentary waves of public sentiment from being adopted as law, and to temper the house which was somewhat expected to be responsive to inflamed passions.

In practice, it has come to work in reverse. I blame the 17th Amendment (among other things).