Maria Bartiromo Touts 'Fashion Forward' Bulletproof Gear In Back to School Segment

As August draws to a close and kids everywhere brace themselves for the depressing slog back to classroom, Fox Business anchor Maria Bartiromo has some good news for those students and parents worried both about looking oh-so-fashionable and maintaining a tactical edge against an inevitable school shooting.

Standing behind a table festooned with colorful backpacks and jackets on Monday morning, Bartiromo introduced Carolina Ballesteros Casas, marketing manager of the Colombia-based MC Armor company, which has released a line of U.S.-specific bulletproof backpacks.

‘It’s fashion with ballistics,” Ballesteros Casas explained, as the last strains of La Roux’s 2009 dance hit “Bulletproof” faded out over the segment.

“In the U.S., sadly, there’s the guns, everybody can have a gun,” she continued. “So, here, kids need to be protected, and we have the fact that there is some school issues, so we need to bring this to the United States.”

Noting that the company “work[s] with pediatricians,” Ballesteros Casas added that “the pediatrician says kids before 15 years, they don’t have fat, they don’t have enough muscles, so they need to have hard ballistics,” to which Bartiromo responded, “Mmm…wow.”

If the idea of pediatricians spending their time considering the BMI of potential shooting victims rather than inoculating school kids with flu shots and tetanus boosters is unspeakably chilling to you—congratulations, you’re a normal human being who is still capable of feeling disgust at just how normalized gun violence has become.

Bartiromo, on the other hand, barely paused to reflect on our current horrorshow, quipping simply that “It’s incredible that this has come to this though, that we need bulletproof clothing.”

But, she added immediately after, “Some of these things are quite fashion forward.” Because in America, kids should know that looking good is no obstacle to surviving a mass shooting. USA! USA!

You can watch the entire segment, if you must, over at Fox Business.

[H/T Media Matters]

Correction, 1:15 p.m.: This post’s headline has been updated to accurately reflect that Bartiromo was discussing multiple items of clothing and accessories.