In 2018, the day after 17 students and staff members were fatally shot at a high school in Florida, Thiesfeldt posted a tweet linking to an article on the on conservative website PJ Media that romanticized a past era when "high school kids rode the bus with rifles and shot their guns at high school rifle ranges." After a backlash, Thiesfeldt deleted the post, issued an apology for what he called an "poorly timed and insensitive" tweet, and said that he did not believe "that children should be able to bring guns to school."