The massacre in Paris on Wednesday was more than just an attack on the employees of a news magazine.

As the gunmen — masked, afraid to expose themselves to the full scrutiny of others’ eyes — opened fire on workers in the offices of the French satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo, killing 12 people, they targeted a core belief of free societies: the right of people to say what they want without fearing for their safety.

Charlie Hebdo has published cartoons of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad and satirical depictions of other religious figures, including the Holy Family and the pope. Its offices were firebombed three years ago, but the magazine continued to publish.

Who is braver, masked men with guns or men and women under threat who nevertheless endure in work that threatens no one but those whose supreme conviction lies in only one belief — that not everyone should be allowed to say what they believe?

Their goal is to silence dissent from their views. Sowing fear is their strategy. Murder is their tactic.

They’re fated to fail.

The instruments of their defeat are people’s continued insistence on the right to free expression and the willingness of others to defend that right.

We as journalists are outraged by the attack. We as a free people should be as well.

The attack happened many miles away, but the ultimate target was all of us.

People light candles as flowers

Bob Edme