We’ve all spent enough happy afternoons vanquishing paper foes at the range to know that paper doesn’t stop bullets. It doesn’t even alter the course of that ball of lead. All it does is provide us evidence of the shot.  A document to be reviewed in the aftermath.

A restraining order is much the same.  Not only can that piece of paper not stop a bullet, it cannot restrain a person bent on violence. We saw this play out a few days ago in Milwaukee.  That piece of paper required him by law to turn in his firearms, but it’s just paper.

That paper forbade him from contact with his estranged wife, but it’s just paper.

Much like our paper targets, it’s a document to be reviewed in the aftermath. Yet this is where the antis would have us place our faith.  In paper.  In laws. Officers that can only act in response to an act of violence and not in the direct prevention of.

I’d far prefer the story had an ending like this.

“When I had the gun, I didn’t think I was actually going to have to shoot somebody,” the 6th grader recalled. “I think it’s going to change me a whole lot, knowing that I can hold my head up high and nothing can hurt me anymore.”

You see, the law didn’t stop the man from breaking into her house.  The officer didn’t get there in time.  But thankfully, this 12 year old girl had something far more powerful than a piece of paper protecting her.  Yet the antis would have had her remain cowering in fear in that closet.  Personally, I don’t want to think about what the criminal had in mind when he sought out the source of those frightened cries.  You can safely assume that he wasn’t just interested in whatever valuables were in the house. They would leave this girl to his mercy.

Paper or lead? I know which carries more weight.

(h/t to Stranger and James Rummel)