In case y’all hadn’t heard, the Manchin-Toomey legislation for firearm background checks lost by six votes a few days back.

Some people are happy; some are sad. Others are outraged, and many are still scratching their heads about what could have happened to make senators decide against “common sense” legislation “backed by most Americans.”

Sen. Richard Blumenthal, D-Conn., went so far as to be heard saying, “The public ought to be outraged and should let the Senate know that they won’t take ‘no’ for an answer.”

By now, you’ve probably heard some anti-gun folks yelling about the “lies” coming from the NRA and the overwhelming influence of the gun lobby.

But is that really the whole reason the legislation was shot down?

Let’s get down to brass tacks.

Background checks are logical and good. There is no sane argument against that as it helps prevent felons and the mentally unstable from walking into a store and purchasing a gun.

Note the word “helps,” not “completely eliminates the problem.”

The legislation wasn’t voted down because those senators voting “nay” don’t want to curb gun violence. That is just political spin to try shame those not jumping on the bandwagon.

The biggest problem with the legislation is that most of the fine folks that make up the population of the United States didn’t understand what all was under vote, and as those people didn’t understand it, it was not in the best interest of their representatives to vote “yea.”

On one hand, what many had to go on were the highly spun arguments of Wayne LaPierre talking about a federal registry and the disarmament of Americans.

And on the otra, you had the heartfelt pleas from victims of gun violence, pleading to stop the madness: Gabby Giffords, families from Newtown and survivors from Aurora.

And, let me tell you this. Neither side was going over the actual details of the language inside the proposals. What the public was given were generalized statements, “common sense” arguments, statistics manipulated for cause and quotes with reassigned context.

Some actual facts were available and could have been used and pointed out more by the media, but they weren’t. Spending the time to educate the masses about details in legislation tends to cause people to change the channel or stop reading to go look at cat memes.

Maybe it is the duty of media to try harder to make education in news entertaining enough to compete with celebrity gossip, outrageous declarations and images of destruction that dominate news cycles, but that is another discussion entirely.

But some facts were there and made for easy soundbytes, yet didn’t receive much play.

For one, the greatest fear about universal background checks, that it would lead to a federal gun registry, was not given the “right” spin.

You see, Federal Law 18 U.S.C. 926 already prohibits a federal registry.

So, what should have been pushed by those supporting a federal background check requirement was an assurance of no such language appearing to offer the potential for creating a loophole to create further registries.

I say “further” because registries of firearm information dating back to 1968 already exist. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives is authorized under the Gun Control Act of 1968 to trace firearms.

That registry — albeit incomplete — includes details such as the names of a given gun’s owner, the dealer selling it, where it was purchased, when it was purchased and the make, model and serial number of the firearm.

The information from the National Tracing Center is only “authorized to trace a firearm for a law enforcement agency involved in a bona fide criminal investigation,” according to ATFE’s Public Affairs Division fact sheet.

Ask yourself how often you heard any of the above mentioned in the news. I’m betting rarely if ever.

Now, ask yourself how often you heard arguments that universal background checks would lead to a federal registry. I’m betting pretty much every news segment.

So, a registry already somewhat exists and is utilized by law enforcement to a degree that has not — unless there is a conspiracy waiting in the wings — been abused through harassment of firearm owners and collectors.

Which makes the worry over disarming of law-abiding citizens fairly unlikely. But, let’s hit on the disarmament of U.S. citizens argument anyway.

There have been some working diligently for background checks that openly admit their ultimate goal is the elimination of firearm ownership for your average citizen:

Dianne Feinstein, a leading voice in the current legislation, said in a 1995 interview for “60 Minutes,” “If I could have gotten 51 votes in the Senate of the United States for an outright ban, picking up every one of them [guns], Mr. and Mrs. America, turn ’em all in. I would have done it.”

Times change, and so do politicians’ stances. However, Feinstein has not said her opinion has changed about firearms. She continues to lie and claim she has never wanted a ban on firearms.

Representatives such as Feinstein need to be booted from the stage and ushered to the back of the room in the same way the absolutely moronic representatives that thought women had some bodily function to prevent impregnation during a rape were publicly chastised.

It is spin 101: If you want to garner majority support for something from a group of people with mixed opinions, don’t let the extremists into the forefront of the marketing of a message.

If those pushing a universal background check wanted to really get a background check into place, they should have been openly making statements that they would never support any ban on firearms or disarmament.

But, some wouldn’t do that because some really would prefer to remove firearms from the hands of your average citizen.

Politicians should have been offering straightforward promises for which they could be held accountable if they went back on their word.

They should have been taking the time to make sure people understand the details of the legislation by crafting pre-planned soundbytes that influence the opinions of those who are wary of universal background checks and the road it might lead to.

To beat down the slippery slope arguments of LaPierre and much of the rest of the gun lobby, the emotional pleas about firearm violence should have been tertiary.

Those photo-ops with the families of Newtown and Aurora and other gun violence across the country reinforced the support of people that were already in the silly extreme of banning all firearms.

Those photo-ops reinforced the support from folks— including most firearm owners— who are already onboard with basic background checks becoming a national standard.

The additional kicker from private transfer, gun shows and online purchases is cost. In 33 states, gun owners can freely wheel and deal at gun shows and from home. Only seven states require background checks for all firearm purchases: California, Colorado, Connecticut, Illinois, New York, Oregon and Rhode Island.

To have full background checks at gun shows and online would cost more money. To realistically have universal background checks, the checks cannot be an additional cost for each instance of assessing the legality of a person desiring to purchase a firearm.

The idea of paying more money and having to fill out a bunch of paperwork just to do something provided for in the Constitution really turns a lot of folks off to the idea of any such firearm legislation.

And it gives a lot of extra spin tactics to anyone opposing legislation because hardly a soul out there votes for increasing their cost, seemingly unnecessarily, to take part in things they enjoy or that can keep their family safe.

As the whole of the citizens of the United States benefits from background checks, the federal government needs to foot the bill for such checks and needs to have a system in place to ensure verification of legality can occur within minutes.

What all of this boils down to is that too many good ideas for firearm safety are being throttled by poor ideas connected to them through political spin tactics.

There is little doubt the gun lobby played a hand in the failure of the Manchin-Toomey proposal to expand existing background checks on firearm buyers to cover firearms sold at gun shows and on the Internet.

But what person can say they weren’t influenced by the other eight proposals also voted on April 17 and how those were spun in connection?

How many people do you know, or even yourself, that understood the details of all nine of the proposals voted on in the Senate?

How many people do you suppose fell for some of the heavy-handed obfuscation by both sides?

If safety and preservation of a constitutional provision are the goals of our representatives, then they need to keep things simple and straightforward.

Gun legislation cannot be diluted with oodles of proposals that make little sense concerning what firearms appear too “scary.” Limiting magazines could be logical if the arguments weren’t mostly based on emotional feeling concerning how many fewer rounds might have been fired in a tragedy.

Making certain the extremists on both sides are not regarded as the forefronts of their respective sides should be a primary step for politicians, alongside crafting legislation that can be explained to the public with little room for confusion.

But hey, this is America. Time and time again, some of our representatives come up with a good idea, and then, other politicians with personal agendas and bias come in to add their desires and foul everything up.

And until those factors become a minority event rather than the standard, we are unlikely to really progress and prosper as a country.