Carl Hiaasen - Kick Ass - Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Miami just wouldn't be the same without its rat-tat-tat.

True, plenty of machine guns are still out on the streets, but they're getting worn out and junky. We all know what happens when you leave your Gustav M45 lying in the backyard—one lousy rainstorm and the muzzle corrodes, the trigger starts to jam, you name it.

The urgent need for new guns was illustrated a few days ago when police raided a crack house in Broward County. Along with cocaine and the usual cache of handguns, two machine guns were seized in the arrest. Believe me, these were the worst looking machine guns you ever saw; they might as well have been held together with paper clips and masking tape.

I'm sure the coke dealers were embarrassed to be caught with such decrepit weapons, but what choice did they have? Thanks to Congress, no new ones are being produced for the U.S. market. They can blame Rep. Larry Smith of Hollywood, who wrote the offending law. Smith says there's no good reason for private citizens to have machine guns, and challenges the gun lobby to come up with any legitimate uses for the deadly automatic weapon. An obvious answer is hunting. What could match the thrill of bringing down a buck with 96 rounds of Parabellum fire at 100 meters? Saves you the trouble of skinning it, too.

So you're not a sportsman? Fine. The machine gun is still an invaluable urban companion. Next time some jerk sneaks in and steals your parking space, feed him a MAC-10 Popsicle and just watch how fast he backs out. Finally, try to imagine what would add more excitement and variety to a police officer's day than knowing that any two-bit creep could have a loaded Tommy gun under his front seat.

So as the NRA pursues its latest quest, all South Florida awaits the day when it's once again possible to gift wrap a shiny new Uzi for that someone special. Maybe even in time for Christmas.

Tarnished Image Alert: Miami officials are concerned that a new book contains outdated information that gives a wrong impression about the area.

The book, due out in May, is called Cities of Opportunity. It lists 42. American cities that are promising and exciting places for young people to relocate. Miami makes the list.

Sounds very positive, except for one glitch. The author, John Tepper Marlin, dares to suggest that we've got a little gun problem down here in South Florida. Now, where would he get a crazy idea like that?

In particular, he mentions the infamous loophole in the state's new handgun law that made it legal to walk around with a six-shooter on your hip. That part of the law was hastily fixed, but not before Marlin had already sent off his manuscript.

The city had a chance to point out this mistake, but was two months late in replying to Marlin's publisher. Consequently, the gun stuff stays in the book.

Some complain that it's not fair to bring up the Dodge City slur again, and fear that the book will present a distorted view of how safe it is to live down here.

If only Mr. Marlin had taken the time to visit in the last week or so, he would have gone back to his typewriter with a completely different outlook about guns in South Florida.

These are some of the stories he would have seen on TV, or read in the papers:

• Someone with an automatic weapon opened fire from a passing car at teenagers on a street corner in Coconut Grove. Three youths, including two high-school football stars, were wounded in the apparently random attack.

• An ex-con robber with a violent past pulled a 9 mm Smith & Wesson on a Miami cabbie, who quickly shot him to death with a Colt .45, one of two pistols he was carrying in his taxi under a new concealed-weapons permit.

• A University of Miami law school graduate named Irv Ribler was shot to death while driving down 1-95 in North Broward. Police believe the murder stemmed from a brief traffic altercation with strangers.

• In Liberty City, three men were shot on the street when somebody in a white Camaro or Firebird opened fire with a shotgun. As the car roared off, the gunmen kept shooting at bystanders, and wounded a 19-year-old woman.

• As her children watched, a woman upset over a custody battle shot her ex-husband to death with a pistol in the parking lot of Dade's main juvenile court.

• Four friends out cruising in North Miami decided to play Russian roulette with a .38-caliber pistol. Jose Cotto, age 14, lost. He was the third teenager to die this way in Dade County since January.

• Police arrested two men for the robbery-slaying nine months ago of a children's ice-cream vendor near Kelsey Pharr Elementary School. Authorities noted that this murder was not related to the robbery-shooting of another ice-cream vendor near the same school in January.

• A former member of the Yahweh religious sect pleaded guilty to second-degree murder in the shooting deaths of two tenants who refused to leave an Opalocka apartment when the Yahwehs tried to evict them.

• In Fort Lauderdale, a Canadian tourist was shot to death in his beachfront hotel room while Spring Breakers partied along The Strip.

• Burglars who broke into a Northwest Dade home stole a 9mm handgun, an Uzi semiautomatic machine gun, a .32-caliber pistol, a 12-gauge shotgun and a Beretta of unspecified caliber.

This is only a recent sampler. Yet, anyone can plainly see that not one of these incidents resulted from so-called "loopholes" in Florida's firearms laws.

So maybe next time a Mr. Smartypants Liberal wants to write a book, he'll buckle down and do his homework.

A gun problem? Us? What an imagination, this guy.

So the madness goes on.

Another policeman falls, while the clowns in Tallahassee argue about whether Key lime or sweet potato should be the state pie. Earlier in the week, they haggled intently over the selection of a state sand.

But don't worry. The true sweat and toil for this legislative session has been saved for the burning issue of repealing a motorcycle helmet law.

Just amazing.

How many cops do we have to lose before somebody up there gets some guts?

How many funerals will it take? How many manhunts? How many pictures of anguished relatives rushing into hospital emergency rooms?

Last year, the Legislature sent a lenient new message about handguns, and this year we got it. The homicide rate is way up, and more cops are down.

Let's hear it for some of the constitutional champions in the Legislature who gave us these murderous laws: Larry Plummer, John Hill and the two Lehtinens; Don Childers of West Palm Beach; Jim Scott and Tom Gustafson of Fort Lauderdale; Arnhilda Gonzalez-Quevedo of Coral Gables; Ron Saunders of Key West; Ray Liberti ofWest Palm Beach; Anne Mackenzie and Debby Sanderson of Fort Lauderdale; Luis Morse, John Cosgrove, Lincoln Diaz-Balart and Javier Souto of Miami; Roberto Casas of Hialeah; Robert Starks of Homestead; and our very own NRA poster boy, Al Gutman.

Hope to see all of you dropping by Jackson Hospital to wish Officer James Hayden a speedy recovery.

The madness is as uncivilized as it is intolerable. We are past the point of scaring off tourists; we're scaring off good cops. Anyone in his right mind would think twice about putting on a badge in a state that abides such bloodletting.

Officer Hayden was wounded during a routine traffic stop on a busy street—four weeks to the day after fellow officer Victor Estefan was murdered under similar circumstances. In the last month, three Miami policemen and a state trooper have been shot by motorists.

I would not blame Chief Clarence Dickson for telling his officers to treat every traffic violator as a potential killer; to approach every car with guns drawn, anticipating another freak with a Smith & Wesson in his lap. Why not? This is the new code of the street.