Last week, a man armed with a grudge and a shotgun waltzed into the newsroom of a Maryland newspaper and opened fire on us all.

He murdered, that is right, murdered five staffers and wounded two others.

In reality, he tried to murder a fundamental principle that underpins our democracy and our way of life. But he failed.

His shotgun slew five messengers, all professionals who have spent much of their lives letting you, our dear readers, know what is going on in your world.

They were following an American tradition that began a long time ago when rabble-rousing colonial editors dared to criticize the actions of King George’s minions.

As our nation grew, our newspaper ancestors used their printing presses to chronicle our growing pains. Sometimes, it was not popular. If you think political discourse is toxic today, how would you like to have been a Missouri editor who advocated against slavery in 1837?

If you don’t believe me, take a minute to look up the career of Maine’s own Elijah Parish Lovejoy, a Colby graduate, and staunch abolitionist. A mob objecting to his political position murdered him and smashed his printing press.

Last week’s terrible events were triggered not by a major national political issue, but by a whiner who said his life had been ruined after the newspaper chronicled his guilty plea to a criminal charge of harassing a woman. He got mad, not at himself, but at the paper which let others know of his criminal conduct.

So, he took the lives of Gerald Fischmann, John McNamara, Rebecca Smith, Wendi Winters and Rob Hiaasen.

As their friends and colleagues were dying, other Capital journalists grabbed their phones and sent out reports from the scene.

Police reporter Phil Davis tweeted the news of the shooting as it occurred. “There is nothing more terrifying than hearing multiple people get shot when you are under your desk and hear the gunman reload,” he wrote.

After he had done his bloody business, the shooter crawled under a desk like a rat and hid as police and paramedics rushed into the building.

The newspaper he attacked is the Capital Gazette, a 29,000 circulation daily that is known for its coverage of local news.

Since its founding in the 1700s, the Capital Gazette has taken pains to write stories about Annapolis, local government, local sports, local schools, local political races, church suppers, local arts and of course, fundraisers for various local causes.

Does this sound familiar? Bingo. It is precisely what reporters and editors at The Boothbay Register and Wiscasset Newspaper do, week after week after week.

We don’t spend much ink on the national and international news. We leave that to the big boys like the Portland Press Herald, The Boston Globe, the New York Times, and the Washington Post.

Your friends at the Boothbay Register, the Wiscasset Newspaper and hundreds of small papers around Maine focus on the same thing for our local readers.

It is not glamorous work. We sit through hour after hour of public meetings watching our elected representatives try to govern our cities, towns, and villages. We spend the day photographing and writing about community events, like Windjammer Days.

We don’t care if the selectmen are Republicans or Democrats, liberal or conservative, are local or from away. We report the news, and try to do it in a fair way that treats everyone with care. We try to give everyone a chance to vent their opinions in our news columns.

Note our recent coverage of Boothbay’s highway construction project known as “the roundabout,” where lots of folks had lots of suggestions and questions, and we wrote about most of them.

In Boothbay Harbor, we continue to carry suggestions, opinions, and criticism of the planned project to rebuild the east side of the harbor.

Our Letters to the Editor columns give our readers a chance to vent their frustrations and make suggestions on private and public questions.

If you don’t think so, check out our pages after recent mass shootings where pro and anti-gun control advocates were given a chance to promote their side of the issue.

Do we always get it right? Of course not. We are not perfect, but we always, always, try to make corrections when we make an error.

Just like the staffers at the Capital Gazette, we do our best to cover the local news for our readers. I guess that is one reason we were all shocked when a man opened fire on our Maryland colleagues.

We grieve for them and their relatives. We ask the Almighty to grant them peace.

Most of all, we admire them,  because, in the midst of horror, they got to work and put out the next day’s newspaper for their readers.

For that is what we do.