Trump defends Carson on guns

Donald Trump said on Wednesday that journalists are misrepresenting his fellow GOP presidential candidate Ben Carson’s statements on last week’s mass shooting in Oregon.

“Ben Carson was speaking in general terms as to what he would do if confronted with a gunman, and was not criticizing the victims,” he tweeted. “Not fair!”

{mosads}Carson sparked outrage on Tuesday by arguing he would have physically attacked the gunman during last week’s rampage at Umpqua Community College in Roseburg, Ore.

“Not only would I probably not cooperate with him, I would not just stand there and let him shoot me,” Carson told hosts Steve Doocy, Brian Kilmeade and Elisabeth Hasselbeck on Fox News’s “Fox & Friends.”

“I would say, ‘Everybody attack him,’” he added. “’He may shoot me, but he can’t get us all.’”

Critics say Carson’s remarks are insensitive given the death toll during the Oct. 1 rampage in Oregon.

Christopher Harper Mercer, 26, reportedly killed nine people and wounded nine others.  Authorities say the alleged gunman then killed himself.

President Obama now plans on visiting Roseburg on Friday and meeting with the victims’ families in the wake of the tragedy.

Carson has repeatedly argued since the incident that Obama’s call for stricter gun control is a knee-jerk reaction.

“There is no doubt that this senseless violence is breathtaking – but I never saw a body with bullet holes that was more devastating than taking the right to arm ourselves away,” he wrote on his Facebook page Monday evening.

“Serious people seek serious solutions,” the retired neurosurgeon continued. “The left would prefer to use these tragedies to advance a political agenda. To me, that is also devastatingly sad.”

Obama has vowed that he is “politicizing” any future mass shootings during the remainder of his second term in the White House.

The president has harshly criticized Congress for its inaction on gun-control legislation following multiple mass shootings during his presidency.