I grew up in a house with guns, and in a neighborhood where families went hunting in the fall in order to have meat in their freezers for the winter.  I’ve handled guns, and shot them and I’ll tell you something that liberals like me don’t often say:   I like shooting.  It’s satisfying to hold a pistol in your two hands, plant yourself, and fire at a target.  (It’s even more satisfying if you actually hit the target, of course.)  It’s a powerful feeling to shoot a gun, and the power is thrilling.

Having said that, I also have to say that my father was an absolute gun safety freak.  He never kept a loaded gun in our home.  We were not a hunting family, but the rifles he and my brothers used for target shooting were kept in locked cases in the bedroom he shared with my mom  — which, unlike my children, we never, ever entered without permission — and the ammunition was in another locked case in the second floor crawl space.  Guns and ammo went into the car in their separate locked cases; after shooting, the guns were cleaned and locked away again for the trip home.

My father’s rule was that you never raised a weapon at someone or something unless you intended to fire at it, and he took it very seriously:  No one could point so much as a water gun at a non-combatant in our house.  When we played cops and robbers, you did not point your toy pistol at people who weren’t participating, like my little sister (or heaven forfend, my dad).

We laughed at my father’s gun rules back then, albeit behind his back.  But today, in the midst of the outrage and sadness of yet another senseless shooting, it occurs to me that my father, a veteran of WWII, understood something profound about guns.  He appreciated their power and their allure, and he had, and insisted that we have, appropriate respect for that power.

My father’s been dead for over 20 years, so I don’t have the chance to argue with him about gun safety.  But while my family will disagree with me, I think he would have supported some of the current gun regulation proposals.  A guy  who insisted that nine-year-olds carry plastic toy cowboy shotguns broken over their arms inside his house would surely  oppose selling military-grade weapons to people on the terrorist watch list or people with mental illness.

Even if those one of those people was his daughter.  I understand the civil liberties issues with these kinds of restrictions.  But I’ve suffered from depression for most of my life.  I am older and wiser now, properly medicated and living a healthy life with people I love and who love me.  But I knew the sadness and hopelessness and the energy it took to keep the ruthless rage I felt — about my helplessness, my inadequacies, my shortcomings and stupidity –in check.  That rage drove me to screaming arguments, to dish throwing, and to a serious suicide attempt.

And here’s the plain and simple and shocking fact:  Had I a gun — God forbid, a gun with a trigger I could hold to fire an endless stream of bullets — on one of the bad days where the rage overtook me and all I wanted was destruction, I would certainly have killed myself with it.  And I would certainly have killed any other innocent within range.

I have worked hard, learned a lot, and have the great good fortune of loving family, good friends, and decent health insurance.  I have tamed my black dog of depression and he lies docile at my feet.  But like my father and his guns, I understand the dog’s power.  And I respect it.

“Don’t Give That Girl A Gun” is the title of an Indigo Girls song.  But really, don’t.  For heaven’s sake, Congress, do your damn job and pass some real gun control.