Democratic presidential contender Andrew Yang broke down in tears while discussing gun safety at a town hall event in Iowa.
At the Everytown Gun Safety Town Hall on Saturday, Yang was asked a question by a woman who said her four-year-old daughter died from a stray bullet while her twin brother watched. She went on to ask what the 44-year-old tech entrepreneur would do to address unintentional shootings by children.
Yang got up after the question and asked the woman if he could hug her. Walking off the stage, the two embraced and shared some words that the microphone did not pick up. When Yang returned to the stage, he covered his face and appeared shaken.
“I have a six- and three-year-old boy, and I was imagining —” he said, pausing while he began to cry. “I was imagining it was one of them that got shot and the other saw it.”
“The biggest downside of running for president for me has been that I don’t get to see my family very much, so I get pictures. That scene that you described, I’m sorry, it’s very affecting,” he added emotionally.
Yang went on to outline his idea of “personalized guns,” which are guns that contain a mechanism that allows them only to be fired by the owner.
“If we can convince Americans that personalized guns are a good idea then again, if the child gets a hold of the gun then they can’t do anything with it, then it just becomes a very heavy, expensive prop,” he said, explaining that part of his plan is to allow gun owners to personalize their firearms free of charge.
The town hall comes after last weekend’s back-to-back shootings in Texas and Ohio that killed 31 people.
