Michigan Democratic Rep. Debbie Dingell reflected on her own experiences with gun violence in discussing the need for Congress to act to keep firearms out of the hands of those who may be a danger to themselves and others.
Dingell, in an interview with CNN on Friday, said she didn’t believe her father should have had access to a firearm and recalled calling the police when he was “out of control and had a gun.”
“It’s hard for me still to talk about it, but I more than once had to hide in the closet with my siblings when my father was out of control and had a gun,” she said. “One night, I literally kept him from killing my mother. I’ve been honest, he had an opioid drug problem, prescription drug problem before anybody knew what it was. There’s been some pretty dramatic nights. He shouldn’t have had a gun.”
.@RepDebDingell gets personal on gun violence: “I more than once had to hide in the closet with my siblings when my father was out of control and had a gun.” @NewDay https://t.co/x21eCvI1tS— Jennifer Rivera (@JennRiveraTV) March 2, 2018
Dingell said when she was a child, “we didn’t know what domestic violence was,” and said though she alerted law enforcement to her father’s behavior, police wouldn’t respond “because of who my father was.”
“We now recognize more things than they did when I was a child,” she said. “But I have frequently said how do we keep the guns out of the hands of those that shouldn’t have them. My father shouldn’t have had a gun.”
Dingell, along with Rep. Fred Upton, R-Mich., was named co-chair of the bipartisan Working Group on Response to Parkland Shooting this week. The group is tasked with devising measures to curb gun violence.
Dingell introduced legislation last year prohibiting people who abused dating partners from purchasing or possessing firearms, and clarifying federal law to prohibit those convicted of stalking from legally purchasing a firearm.
She also is one of more than 170 Democrats who signed onto a bill, called the Assault Weapons Ban of 2018, prohibiting the “sale, transfer, production and importation” of some semi-automatic weapons.
