(Reuters) - Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, a Nevada Democrat, said on Tuesday that fewer than 40 of his chamber's 100 members support a White House-backed bill to renew a ban against military-style assault weapons.

The scant support virtually assures rejection of the bill, a centerpiece of Obama's bid to curb gun violence in wake of a massacre at a Connecticut elementary school on December 14 that left 20 children and six adults dead.

"Right now," Reid told reporters, the bill drafted by Democratic Senator Dianne Feinstein of California, "has less than 40 votes."

Read more at Reuters