Texas

TL;DR: laws based on emotion (especially those named after individuals, or that include the words children or patriot) are rarely good laws.

I tell her imagine if that was our kid missing, youd want as many people to see it as possible.

AMBER alerts don't do what the public thinks they do; they do what the politicians know they do: demonstrate doing something when the base demands "somebody's gotta do something". It's political equivalent of looking Very Serious and intoning "thoughts and prayers".

If we actually cared about the kids we'd notice the majority of AMBER alerts are due to frustrated non-custodial parents taking their kids, and to runaways. We could address the problems at first base, or we can continue to be shocked, SHOCKED I say, and go through the kabuki once again.