CALIFORNIA – U.S. Republican presidential candidates on Thursday rushed to
describe a mass shooting in California as a sign that Americans are at risk
from homegrown Islamic militants, seizing on the country’s deadliest massacre
in three years before a motive had been firmly established.

Candidates spoke to the Republican Jewish Coalition’s annual
conference to warn of the threat from Islamic State militants and pledge to
take steps against the group, a sign of how the deadly Paris attacks last month
have transformed the campaign running up to the November 2016 election.

“There can be no doubt that this is an effort to destroy
our very way of life,” said Republican John Kasich, the governor of Ohio.

Many candidates were quick to link the killing of 14 people in
San Bernardino, California on Wednesday to the possibility of homegrown
radicals. It was the deadliest shooting in the United States since 20 children
and six adults were killed by a gunman at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in
Newtown, Connecticut in December 2012.

“If a center for the mentally disabled in San Bernardino,
California, can be a target for a terrorist attack, then every place in America
is a target for a terrorist attack,” said New Jersey Governor Chris
Christie. “We need to come to grips with the idea that we are in the midst
of the next world war.”

A motive for Wednesday’s attack is far from clear. The head of
the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s Los Angeles Field Office probing the
shooting said on Thursday it would be “irresponsible and premature”
to say that terrorism was the motive.

Authorities are trying to determine whether the couple accused
of the killing, Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik, had links to Islamic
militant groups abroad. The two were killed in a shootout with police after Wednesday’s
massacre.

President Barack Obama said the gunfire that erupted at a
holiday party was possibly “terrorist-related” but could have been
the result of a workplace dispute.

Texas Senator Ted Cruz joined the criticism, saying Obama had
failed to take steps to protect the United States and declared it is time for a
“war-time” president.

Real estate mogul and reality TV personality Donald Trump, who
leads polls of Republican voters, said the California attack was likely related
to what he called “radical Islamic terrorism.” He faulted Obama for
refusing to use that term.

“There’s something going on with him that we don’t know
about,” said Trump, who has repeatedly sought to raise doubts about
whether Obama was born in the United States. Obama in 2011 produced his birth
certificate to prove he was born in Hawaii.

Contrary to Democrats, who have called for tougher gun laws to
prevent violent attacks, Cruz announced plans to hold a “Second
Amendment” event in Iowa on Friday, in reference to the U.S. constitutional
right to bear arms.

Candidate Carly Fiorina, a former Hewlett-Packard CEO, said in
an interview on Fox News ahead of her speech Thursday that “everything
points to a terrorist attack, a homegrown terrorist attack” in San
Bernardino.

Both former Florida Governor Jeb Bush and Florida Senator Marco
Rubio were careful not to declare the California attacks the result of
homegrown jihadists while it was still being investigated. Bush led the crowd
in a moment of silence for the victims.

Rubio said the West is waging war against radical
“apocalyptic Islam.”

“We must not separate the threat to Jerusalem and Tel Aviv
from the threat to Paris or London or New York or Miami,” Rubio said.

South Carolina Senator Lindsey Graham, a foreign policy hawk who
wants to send more American troops to Iraq, said he would pursue an aggressive
policy against Islamic State and “kill every one of these bastards that we
can find.”