The SHIELD Act won’t save the children, Elliott
In recent days, Republican member of the Minnesota House Elliott Engen criticized Governor Tim Walz’s gun control efforts and urgings, including banning rapid-fire, high-capacity and high-velocity rifles, and said we should instead adopt the SHIELD Act for which his is the chief author. The bill is H.R. 15, and you can read it here. Here’s Engen’s tweet on the subject:
For 3.5 years, this shell of a man has blocked my bill at every turn that would make Minnesota Schools the safest in the nation.
When tragedy strikes, he sees an opportunity to shirk blame, and fundraise.
He embodies everything that is wrong with politics. pic.twitter.com/tvxWsgA5hX
— Elliott Engen (@elliottengenMN) October 11, 2025
I asked Engen multiple times over multiple days if his SHIELD Act would have saved the children at Annunciation school. Elliott is a reluctant correspondent; I never heard back from him. So, I will answer his question:
The SHIELD Act would not have made the children (and adults) at Annunciation safe, for multiple reasons.
It’s a red herring. The act talks about comprehensive, multilayered, integrated security systems for schools. In truth, Engen’s bill is part of a comprehensive, multilayered, integrated security system for assault rifles.
The act provides grants for school for using ballistic glass for interior windows, ballistic walls, a lockdown system for classrooms and exterior doors. Significantly, it says nothing about exterior glass, either plain or stained.
We know that the Annunciation school shooting took place in the church next door and the shooter didn’t even go inside. Robin Westman stood outside and sprayed the sanctuary through a window of stained glass. Apparently, the doors were locked.
There is a story passed around on the internet, that I cannot find at the moment, but a young Annunciation student was asked if they did shooter drills. He replied, Yeah, in the school, but not in church.
Students gather in places other than classrooms: hallways, gymnasiums, and playgrounds for example.
It is a common school design to have a windowed exterior hallway with lockers for students. They are crowded between classes, vulnerable to a Robin Westman copycat.
Students are not in the classroom when they pile on to long lines of trapped, nose-to-tail yellow school buses after school is dismissed for the day. A .223 high velocity round from an assault rifle would penetrate the side of a school bus easily. Think of a hundred of these rounds. And extra clips.
The SHIELD Act doesn’t say anything about up-armoring school buses.
You see, there are many thing that Callow Elliott didn’t think about. That’s because Callow Elliott is thinking about protecting assault rifles, not children.
Some of you will recall the story about a group of people picnicking along a river. Someone shouts, There’s a baby floating down the river! and wades in to rescue the child from the water. Then another baby floats down and another person wades in. The babies keep coming, and soon everyone is in the water frantically saving children.
One member of the group gets out of the water and starts running upstream, and another shouts, Where are you going? We need everybody here rescuing babies!
I’m going to stop whoever is throwing babies in the water, was the reply.
An assault weapons ban is the person who headed upstream to stop babies from being thrown into the water. We need an upstream solution. It wouldn’t be perfect, nothing human ever is, but when you consider all the school shooting reports where the shooter legally bought an assault rifle in the days or hours before a shooting, it makes a lot of sense and would doubtlessly save lives, probably a lot of them.
Thanks for your feedback. If we like what you have to say, it may appear in a future post of reader reactions.