Je Suis Charlie

Most days we give no thought to the possibility that someone could show up at our offices intending us harm.

That’s not to say we’ve never had folks show up here spitting nails over something we printed. Sometimes they get an attorney involved, but even that is rare.

Mostly, folks are angry with us when we make mistakes. But from time to time we do get calls from people upset about the content we print. Some folks prefer to cancel their subscriptions rather than continue their support for ideas with which they disagree.

But the potential risk to our staff’s safety is real enough we had a silent alarm bell installed several years back, just in case. Though we fervently hope never to use it.

We’ve spent a lot of time thinking about that silent buzzer this week after the news of three masked gunmen who opened fire and killed 12 people Jan. 7 at the Paris offices of the satirical weekly newspaper Charlie Hedbo. The massacre rattled the nation of France and sent shock waves around the world.

This terrorist attack was a direct assault on our collective freedom of expression.

This shooting incident also brings to mind a pair of violent and tragic incidents from Alaska’s past, one of which sought to strong-arm a newspaper into publishing specific content.

Evan Ramsey was 5 years old when his father went to prison following a police standoff at the Anchorage Times in October 1986. Don Ramsey showed up at the newspaper office that day armed with an Armalite AR-18 rifle, a revolver, and more than 210 rounds of ammunition after the paper declined to publish a political letter he had written.

Evan is serving a 99-year prison sentence for killing two people and wounding two others in a shooting at Bethel Regional High School shooting Feb. 19, 1997.

We recount this chapter in Alaska history here because it also illustrates the destructive nature of violence. Violence is a weapon. It is not a tool. In this case, it’s a weapon that destroyed two generations of the Ramsey family and shattered many more lives in the process.

We wish Don Ramsey had chosen a peaceful solution that October day and taught his son to do the same. We wholly reject the notion that anyone’s point of view is ever so right, and another’s ideas so wrong, that violence is an acceptable — or justifiable — response.

Peaceful behaviors are something we have to practice as adults and model for our children daily. There is no chemical flashpoint that forces humans to react in anger, or respond with violence. We have free will, and we are responsible for our individual choices.

As adults, we know it matters what our kids see us do. We know there is value in showing them how to resolve conflict with peaceful solutions. And we know there are real consequences for our nation, our children, and world when we abandon peaceful resolutions.

The news this week also carried the story of a bombing outside an NAACP office in Colorado Springs, Colo. Whether the terrorists are foreign or domestic, we must not be cowed by these attempts to use violence to silence free speech.

We offer our condolences to the people of France, who in the aftermath of the tragedy have adopted the phrase “je suis Charlie” – I am Charlie – as a collective show of solidarity against the senseless violence that took place on Wednesday. We grieve with them as they wept with us when terrorists attacked our nation on Sept. 11, 2001.

We mourn with them and share their determination of spirit. We will not bow to those who would use violence as a weapon against us in an attempt to silence free speech.

Je suis Charlie — I am Charlie. We are all Charlie.