The state of Texas is sending public school students home with DNA kits designed to help their parents identify their children “in case of an emergency.” In 2021, the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill No. 2158, a law requiring the Texas Education Agency to “provide identification kits to school districts and open-enrollment charter schools for distribution to the parent or legal custodian of certain students.” The law passed after eight students and two teachers were shot and killed inside Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, and almost a year before 19 fourth-graders and two teachers were gunned down inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. The Texas public school system will provide ink-free fingerprint and DNA identification cards to all K-6 students who are eligible. Parents are not mandated to use the kits. The three-fold pamphlets allow caregivers to store their children’s DNA and fingerprints at home, which could then be turned over to law enforcement agencies in the event of an “emergency.” According to the legislation mandating the kits be provided to qualifying Texas families, the fingerprint and DNA verification kits were intended to “help locate and return a missing or trafficked child.” In the wake of the second deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history and the botched police response that left 19 students and two teachers dead, Texas parents are apprehensive about the kits and the message some are saying it sends to Texas families. Many of the children gunned down inside Robb Elementary were not easily identifiable as a result of their catastrophic injuries. Some close family members provided DNA swabs in order to positively identify the children’s remains. Tracy Walder, a former CIA and FBI agent and current college professor who taught high school history for 16 years, said she was “devastated” when she heard her second-grade daughter would be sent home with a kit. “You have to understand, I’m a former law enforcement officer,” Walder, who has lived in Texas for 14 years, said. "I worry every single day when I send my kid to school. Now we’re giving parents DNA kits so that when their child is killed with the same weapon of war I had when I was in Afghanistan, parents can use them to identify them?” Walder said she has tried to “find the right words” for how she feels, but she doesn’t think she can “because sometimes it’s beyond comprehension.” “This sends two messages: The first is that the government is not going to do anything to solve the problem. This is their way of telling us that,” Walder said. “The second is that us parents are now forced to have conversations with our kids that they may not be emotionally ready for. My daughter is 7. What do I tell her?” Brett Cross, whose 10-year-old son Uziyah Garcia was killed in the Robb Elementary School shooting, shared his frustration over the kits on social media. “Yeah! Awesome! Let’s identify kids after they’ve been murdered instead of fixing issues that could ultimately prevent them from being murdered,” Cross posted on Twitter. https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-new...ts-identify-kids-bodies-emergencies-rcna52887
Well the problem is easy to solve as explained by @Phatguysrule . This isn't a state issue though. It's a federal issue. It's sad, but I don't think this action by Texas is worthy of outrage.
This lady is an absolute liar or an idiot. No kid has been killed with the same weapon she had in Afghanistan (unless she had a civilian sporting rifle on the front lines for some stupid reason). Select fire rifles with full auto and burst are illegal to own in the US without completing an extremely expensive permitting process, intense background check, and giving the ATF freedom to examine your home and everything in it any time they want without notice. Not many people are willing to do all of that just to own an actual modern military rifle. And the people who do certainly don't lose track of those rifles.
Or we could you know, introduce smart gun legislation and fund mental healthcare nah fuck that let’s just worry about being able to properly ID little children’s mangled bodies
I think we all know what Texas is about with their current leadership. And it's not about solving any real problems.
