Photograph by JIM WATSON/AFP/Getty

WASHINGTON (The Borowitz Report)—Republican Presidential candidates ripped President Obama on Tuesday for what they called his stubborn insistence on linking gun violence with guns.

In campaign stops across Iowa and New Hampshire, the G.O.P. hopefuls pounded the President for irrationally concluding that guns have played a role in the nation's epidemic of mass shootings.

"How any reasonable person could look at gun violence and say that guns are involved is beyond me," said Texas Senator Ted Cruz. "And yet, somehow, President Obama always finds a way."

"I would very much like to have a conversation about gun violence, as President Obama has said he wants to have," said Florida Senator Marco Rubio. "But as long as he keeps falling back on this tired, unproven connection between gun violence and guns, there's just no point."

The former Hewlett-Packard C.E.O. Carly Fiorina said that Obama's persistent linking of gun violence with guns was "sad but not surprising, from a man who believes that people's health can be improved by access to health care."

"He isn't thinking straight," she said.

Of all the candidates, though, the retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson was perhaps the most scathing in his assessment of the President's remarks. "Even if every gun in the world suddenly disappeared, there would still be gun violence," he said.