As the nation still desperately tries to heal in the aftermath of the absolutely catastrophic Robb Elementary School Shooting that cost the lives of 21 innocent human beings — 19 sweet, young school children and 2 of their beloved teachers — new reporting now confirms that, in what we believe is a truly traumatizing and insulting move, Texas schools are now sending providing families with DNA kits, with the sole purpose of more effectively and efficiently identifying the bodies of dead children, “in case of an emergency.”
It’s certainly no secret at this point that the United States as a whole consistently takes a reactive rather than a proactive approach to gun violence in this country, even when that stance results in the repeated slaughter of innocent school children. Politicians have made it crystal clear that their gun rights ultimately far outweigh yours or your child’s right to go out in public without running the constant risk of being shot to death in their schools or the grocery store or the movie theater…
However, this newest move in Texas goes even further beyond that. It seems that Texas wants all of its people to know full and well — we will not protect your children from being shot to death in their classrooms, but we will pitch in to help expedite the process of finding their dead bodies.
Grim and morbid, I know. Also true.
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Today now reports that the Texas state legislature passed Senate Bill No. 2158 back in 2021, a piece of legislation that would require 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 came in the aftermath of and somewhat in response to a shooting inside Santa Fe High School in Santa Fe, Texas, where 8 students and 2 teachers lost their lives to the gunman. Not even a year later, Texas would be rocked to its core again when Salvador Ramos opened fire on a fourth-grade classroom and brutally slaughtered 21 human beings.
As a result of the bill, the TX public school system will now be providing the families of all eligible K-6 students with an ink-free fingerprint and DNA identification card kit. The sole purpose of the kits, while not mandatory of families, is to allow officials to more efficiently identify the bodies of dead children, “in case of emergencies.”
Today reports:
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.”
The TX legislation and subsequent DNA identification kits have left local parents wracked with even more anxiety about the safety of simply sending their children to school every day.
Former CIA and FBI agent, current college professor, and TX resident Tracy Walder spoke with the publication and said she was “devastated” upon learning that her second-grade daughter would be provided with one of the kits.
You have to understand, I’m a former law enforcement officer. 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?
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?”
Brett Cross, the father of 10-year-old Uziyah Garcia who was killed in the Uvalde shooting, was left furious by the legislation:
Yeah! Awesome! Let’s identify kids after they’ve been murdered instead of fixing issues that could ultimately prevent them from being murdered. It’s like wiping your ass before you take a shit. https://t.co/1V3i1lIfTc
— Brett Cross (@BCross052422) October 18, 2022
In the aftermath of the Uvalde massacre, multiple reports confirmed that many families of the victims were forced to provide DNA samples in order to identify their children, as their bodies were quite literally destroyed by the slaughter and therefore not easily identifiable.
Read the full report from Today Parents here.
Featured image via Wikimedia Commons/Liz, licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license
