Ray Rice -- THE JOKES BEGIN ... Gilbert Gottfried Zings NFL Star

Too soon? Apparently not ... according to Gilbert Gottfried who finally decided to put Ray Rice in the comedy crosshairs.

"Obviously Ray Rice misunderstood me when I said 'She's hot, you should definitely hit that!'" ... Gilbert tweeted.

Cracking jokes on timely news stories is kinda Gilbert's thing -- and he also knows there can be consequences ... like when he was fired from his job as the voice of the AFLAC duck back in 2011 after joking about the tsunami in Japan.