Carl Hiaasen - Kick Ass - Selected Columns of Carl Hiaasen

Santa, are you listening?

Strolling the aisles, it's impossible not be tempted by the M-60 Automatic Assault Lazer ("Try Me! Pull Trigger"). For $19.99, your pint-size holiday sniper can hear the same pop-pop-pop that real snipers do.

And the extra ammo belt makes a cool stocking-stuffer.

No armory would be complete without a selection of 9mm semi-automatics. Toys-R-Us sells a model resembling the one used so successfully by the madman on the Long Island commuter train. Made in Macau ("Loaded—Try me!"), it's a bargain at $5.99 … and there's no waiting period. Yet.

But parents seeking the ultimate in toy weaponry should train their sights on "Survivor Shot." For $29.98, Junior gets a high-tech rifle and a battery-operated headset to be worn during simulated firefights.

The toy's major selling point is plastered in bold letters on the box: "When you're hit, you feel it! "That's right—the sting of a bullet, without the permanent brain damage.

Now we're talking fun.

Those sappy bleeding hearts are at it again. I guess they won't be satisfied until they've completely destroyed the free-enterprise system.

Their latest whipping boy is one of South Florida's most prosperous and innovative companies, Navegar Inc., maker of handy low-cost Intratec assault weapons—and my write-in nominee for Miami Herald Company of the Year.

Forgive a little hometown cheerleading, but Miami doesn't have much to brag about in the way of light manufacturing. Intratec has put us on the map!

Its Tec 9, Tec-DC9 and Tec-22 were among the most sought-after street guns in the United States, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms. For legions of budget-minded gang members who couldn't afford a MAC-10 or an Uzi, the Tecs became the ideal travel companion.

"High spirited," according to Navegar chief Carlos M. Garcia, whose business was booming (literally).

But wouldn't you know it—as soon as a hard-working entrepreneur makes the big time, those candy-ass liberals come along and try to ruin him.

Last year's ban on 19 types of assault rifles targeted the Tecs, and forced Navegar into an inconvenient re-engineering of its product line. Lost because of picky new regulations were such helpful features as the threaded barrel, for attaching silencers.

Undaunted, the resourceful Garcia devised a new generation of legal weapons that look and perform much like the old ones, but with fewer bullets.

Then, last week, another ambush: The families of victims murdered in 1993 by a homicidal lunatic sued Navegar for negligence.

OK, so it's true that Gian Luigi Ferri walked into a San Francisco office and shot 15 persons, killing nine. And it's also true he was firing two Tec-DC9s, made right here in Dade County. And, yes, each gun was capable of shooting 32 rounds without being reloaded.

But how was Carlos Garcia to blame? Who could imagine that anyone would ever use a cheap, rapid-fire, easily concealed semiautomatic for violent purposes?

The California families contend that the Intratecs have no sporting use, and are promoted with criminals in mind.

True, sales brochure bragged that the Tec-DC9 was specially coated for "excellent resistance to fingerprints." There's probably a perfectly good explanation—maybe Intratec customers are neatniks who don't like smudges on their grips.

Garcia has patiently explained that his guns are meant for recreational "plinking" at tin cans "or objects like water jugs." He says they also seem popular with survivalists bracing for another world war.

Just as Ford knows that some of its cars will end up in fatal accidents, Navegar has become aware that some of its firearms are not being used to shoot water jugs.

As Garcia once said: "I know some of the guns going out of here end up killing people, but I'm not responsible for that."

Despite serious run-ins with the ATF (for making weapons too easily converted to machine guns), Garcia perseveres. Each fusillade of rotten publicity makes him work even harder.

In 1990 a robber used a Tec-9 to murder Broward Sheriffs Deputy Jack Greeney. A weaker company might have closed shop in shame, but Navegar's assembly line never missed a beat.

From 1991-93, it put more than 125,000 more Intratecs on the streets of America, making Florida nearly as famous for deadly weapons as it is for citrus.

One way to say thanks is to name Navegar as our Company of the Year. Let's show Garcia that we care about him as much as he cares about us.

A new national study reports that South Florida's TV stations spend 27.5 percent of their evening news broadcasts on crime and criminal justice, prompting the obvious question:

Is that all?

The surprise isn't how much time Miami TV devotes to murder and mayhem, but how little. The average for local 6 P.M. news broadcasts was 29.3 percent—about 30 seconds more than in the blood-spattered Dade-Broward market.

If anything, our stations show uncommon restraint. South Florida being the violent pit it is, TV news directors could easily fill the entire program with local gore. They seldom do.

Yet the University of Miami professor who directed the media study laments the findings. "It's unfortunate," said Joe Angotti, "that body-bag journalism is what local news chooses to focus on at the expense of more important stories."

Hogwash. What is unfortunate is that there's so much violence that it can't be ignored. Sadly, body-bag journalism reflects a body-bag world. We all worry some about crime because it's touched all of us.

Is it not "important" news when a two-bit shoplifter guns down a security guard in broad daylight at one of South Florida's busiest shopping malls?

How about when four members of a family, including two little children, are slaughtered in their Miramar home? Or when a father, his son and a friend are executed by intruders at an electronics warehouse in West Dade?

All that from just a week's worth of police-blotter entries. You see the problem: No other single place can compete with our volume, ferocity and weirdness of crime.

Considering the deluge, Miami's TV stations do a decent job of balancing police news with health, education and politics. Some days, it isn't easy.

Give viewers a choice between an informative story about a new low-cholesterol diet or a grisly tale about sickos stealing human heads out of crypts, and they'll dial up the cadavers every time.

For the crime-content survey, researchers in eight markets studied a half-hour of news broadcasts on four random days. Wow, that's two whole hours of TV in each city—and who's calling whom shallow?

(Incredibly, the most infamous of our local stations, WSVN-Channel 7, finished third in the body-bag derby. No talk yet of a slander suit.)

One hole in the methodology: Only English-speaking TV stations were studied. Another flaw: Only 6 P.M. broadcasts were analyzed. Many stations start the news at 5 P.M., and in-depth features often air that first hour.

That's not to say some crime stories aren't overplayed and exploited on TV, sometimes disgracefully. It's also true that some are underplayed.

In any case, there aren't many news directors who wouldn't love to get more time for school issues, medical breakthroughs, political analysis and I-Team investigations.

The problem is, news keeps happening. You can't keep it off the air.

To insinuate that crime coverage isn't serious journalism is to repudiate one of the media's essential roles. People want to be safe in their communities, and they deserve to know when they're not.

One reason that serious crime fell so sharply in New York is that the media kept a spotlight on it. As for the use of "sensational video" decried by Professor Angotti, Anthony Windes probably isn't complaining.