This is just awful:

At least two masked gun­men stormed the Paris offices of satir­i­cal [French lan­guage] week­ly Char­lie Heb­do on Wednes­day, killing twelve peo­ple and injur­ing eleven more before escap­ing in a car. It was France’s dead­liest ter­ror­ist attack in decades.

Some of France’s most promi­nent car­toon­ists were among the dead, includ­ing the magazine’s direc­tor Stéphane Char­bon­nier, known as “Charb”. Sev­en oth­er jour­nal­ists were killed along with two police offi­cers, a guest at the Char­lie Heb­do offices and the building’s receptionist.

The gun­men report­ed­ly shout­ed “Allahu Akbar” (God is great­est) dur­ing their dead­ly ram­page. Char­lie Heb­do had been a tar­get of Islamist extrem­ists ever since it pub­lished car­toons of the Prophet Mohammed, Islam’s holi­est fig­ure, in 2006. Its pre­vi­ous head­quar­ters were fire­bombed in 2011.

Char­lie Heb­do has long had a rep­u­ta­tion of tak­ing aim at sacred cows. In many respects, it is sim­i­lar to The Onion, which went online-only over a year ago. It is a bea­con of pro­gres­sive thought in France.

Its staff were (and still are) prac­ti­tion­ers of free expres­sion. They did­n’t just believe in the idea of free speech and a free press; they lived it. And for that, they were tar­get­ed by fanat­i­cal, rad­i­cal­ized fun­da­men­tal­ists who believe par­o­dies of the founder of their reli­gion mer­it death at the bar­rel of a gun.

We at NPI join with the read­ers of Char­lie Heb­do today in offer­ing our deep­est con­do­lences to the staff of those killed, and the police offi­cers who lost their lives in the line of fire try­ing to pro­tect them. And we pray for the heal­ing and the recov­ery of the near­ly dozen more peo­ple who were wounded.

When­ev­er free­dom of speech, free­dom of the press, and free­dom of expres­sion come under attack, they must be defend­ed. Per­haps Franklin Roo­sevelt said it best: Ulti­mate­ly, the only thing we have to fear is fear itself. Now is the time for the peo­ple of France to show steely resolve, not panic.

The French police have launched a man­hunt for the attack­ers who got away. Inte­ri­or Min­is­ter Bernard Cazeneuve told the press that “all the resources of the jus­tice sys­tem and Inte­ri­or Min­istry have been mus­tered… [The ter­ror­ists] will be pun­ished with the sever­i­ty that the bru­tal­i­ty of their acts deserve.”

We wish them every suc­cess and we know the good peo­ple of Paris and France will lend a will­ing hand in assist­ing the author­i­ties catch these vio­lent extremists.

Appro­pri­ate­ly, polit­i­cal car­toon­ists around the world have begun respond­ing, using their arts to show their sol­i­dar­i­ty with the vic­tims of the attack.

Je suis Char­lie (I am Char­lie) has become a ral­ly­ing cry across continents.

Pres­i­dent Barack Oba­ma issued a state­ment ear­li­er today in response to the attacks on behalf of the peo­ple of the Unit­ed States of America.

“I strong­ly con­demn the hor­rif­ic shoot­ing at the offices of Char­lie Heb­do mag­a­zine in Paris that has report­ed­ly killed twelve peo­ple,” the Pres­i­dent said.

“Our thoughts and prayers are with the vic­tims of this ter­ror­ist attack and the peo­ple of France at this dif­fi­cult time. France is America’s old­est ally, and has stood shoul­der to shoul­der with the Unit­ed States in the fight against ter­ror­ists who threat­en our shared secu­ri­ty and the world. Time and again, the French peo­ple have stood up for the uni­ver­sal val­ues that gen­er­a­tions of our peo­ple have defended.”

“France, and the great city of Paris where this out­ra­geous attack took place, offer the world a time­less exam­ple that will endure well beyond the hate­ful vision of these killers. We are in touch with French offi­cials and I have direct­ed my Admin­is­tra­tion to pro­vide any assis­tance need­ed to help bring these ter­ror­ists to justice.”