WASHINGTON — During debate on a gun bill Thursday, U.S. Rep. Debbie Dingell, D-Dearborn, emotionally recounted hiding from her mentally unstable father as a child, bringing lawmakers to their feet as she declared, "He never should have had a gun."

"I have spent more time thinking about how you keep guns out of the hands of abusers, more probably than anybody in this chamber," said Dingell, who last month buried her husband, former U.S. Rep. John Dingell. "I know better than most the dangers they pose.

"It’s not easy for me to talk about it this week. But ... I will be honest on this floor, my father was mentally ill. I had to hide in that closet, with my siblings, wondering if we would live or die. One night I kept my father from killing my mother. He shouldn’t have had a gun."

Dingell's comments came as the House debated legislation to extend the period of time a federally licensed gun dealer must wait for a background check to be completed before he or she can sell the weapon even if the check is still undone.

Watch Dingell speak at the 2:38:38 mark in the video below.

The legislation calls for extending the current three-day wait to as long as 20 days. But U.S. Rep. Debbie Lesko, R-Ariz., herself a survivor of domestic violence, proposed sending the legislation back to committee to add a clause that would allow victims of domestic violence to still get guns within three days, even without a background check.

Dingell, while saying "my heart goes out to my colleague ... because she never should have suffered from domestic violence," still railed against the proposal, saying it does more harm than good.

"My mother," Dingell remembered, "went out and bought a gun.

"And then all of us were scared to death about her gun and my father’s gun. We had two guns to worry about. No child, no woman, no man should ever have to go through that," she shouted, as other members of the House rose to applaud.

On several other occasions, Dingell has discussed her childhood, including what she has described as her father's addiction to medication and the violence she witnessed. But rarely has she done so on the House floor with such emotion in her voice.

Lesko's motion to recommit the bill failed 194-232. The legislation — which faces long odds of passing in the Republican-controlled Senate — was approved 228-198.

The impetus for the legislation in part was the so-called "default proceed" sale of a firearm to Dylann Roof, who went on to murder nine people at the Emanuel

African Methodist Episcopal Church in Charleston, South Carolina, in 2015. Roof was not legally allowed to possess a firearm because of drug charges.

Read more:

Michigan's John Dingell, longest-serving member in Congress, dies at 92

Gun control: House passes expanded background checks as GOP tries to shift focus to immigration

Contact Todd Spangler:tspangler@freepress.com. Follow him on Twitter@tsspangler. Read more onMichigan politics and sign up for ourelections newsletter.