Washington (CNN) -- In a major defeat for supporters of tougher gun laws, the U.S. Senate on Wednesday defeated a compromise plan to expand background checks on firearms sales as well as a proposal to ban some semi-automatic weapons modeled after military assault weapons.

The votes were on a series of amendments to a broad package of gun laws pushed by President Barack Obama and Democratic leaders in the aftermath of the Newtown school massacre in December.

However, fierce opposition by the powerful National Rifle Association led a backlash by conservative Republicans and some Democrats from pro-gun states that doomed some of the major proposals in the gun package.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/04/17/politics/senate-guns-vote/index.html?hpt=hp_t1

Basically I'm just wondering. I guess I am not well informed of the issue since I'm not a gun owner, but could someone explain to me what was wrong with this bill and what's wrong with universal background checks in general?

I think America's political system with 2 sides is pretty dumb and an absolute failure.. With politicians doing whats good for them iand to annoy the other instead doing whats good for the people.. Ugh..

Good. To answer your question it's really about second hand sales. If your friend wants to sell you a gun, you should just be able to sell it without being forced to pay for a background check.

It's got nothing to do with anything being wrong with the bill, it's got everything to do with money, arms companies and the fact that the US government makes law on the say so of business and business alone.

Sure you can have a bit of debate for show but don't expect anything to go through unless it's funded, the bigger the backer the faster it goes through.

Then of course it will be twisted to make it look like it's a good thing and the constitution is being upheld, when in fact the constitution only states that arms can be held by right during times of conflict/war, strange that last bit gets forgotten ;)

Isn't that a small cost to pay for the safety of others? I know I'd want to make sure I'm not selling a gun to a mentally unstable person, and hopefully a background check would prevent that.

It's all about freedom and shit, the role of the government should only be to stop dem faggy boys from getting married not to stop the mentally unstable from getting weapons of mass murder

note: this is sarcasm I know mods here like to ban people if they don't had ''j/k'' or ''sarcasm'' at the end of their post

This guy gets it.

Any infringement on gun ownership is illegal. Background checks determine if you qualify to bear arms. So lawmakers determine what is qualified and their determinations go to far. If you were perscribed drugs as a 5 year old because you couldnt sit still in your desk, when you're an adult you are considered mentally unfit to possess a weapon.

im sure there's more reasons but thats one.

should you be allowed to resell your prescription oxycodone to whoever as well?

Gun control is a total distraction, anyway. After this week's events no one can deny that what's truly needed is pressure cooker control.