No Color, No Car

It occurs to me, I've never bought a new car that wasn't a color.


My first car was a hand-me-down. It was a grey Chevy Citation.


My second car was the the first new car that I paid for. It was a Regatta Red Nissan Pulsar NX.


My third car was a used car. I had to buy it because my, then 8 year old Nissan had suffered a financially untenable mechanical failure. I needed a car ASAP and needed it for less than the repair-costs of the Nissan. I ended up with a Charcoal Honda Civic.


My next car was a "by choice" purchase. Another Honda Civic, I selected a pearlescent Aztec Green for its color.


Thanksgiving of 1997, I was visiting family in Pennsylvania. At the time, my father was looking to get himself a new car. We stopped by a VW dealership ...that shared space with a BMW dealership. I happened to notice a Z3 in the show room. Hadn't been intending to buy a car - wasn't really even looking for one, but the color caught me. Asked to take it for a test drive. Ended up returning to DC with a (limited edition - one of 300 made globally) Dakar Yellow Z3.


When time came to replace the Z3, I decided I needed something notionally more practical. Of the many cars I tried, none really felt right ...until I took a ride in a co-worker's brand new e46 (2000 model year). He let me take it for a drive and I really liked it. I still wanted a convertible, though, but orders for such were no longer available on the 2000 model year. Put deposit down and ordered a 2001 convertible in "Techno Violet Metallic". Nine months later, it showed up and I traded in the Z3.

Six months later (and just two weeks after 9/11), it was stolen. Was able to order a replacement, but it was a 2002 model year. It arrived in late December of 2001. That's the car I'm still driving, today.


While I've purchased two other vehicles, since then - both for my wife - only one has been a non-color. She insisted on black (she's a goth and generally color-shy) for the first vehicle that we'd hoped would end up being a sprogling-hauler. At least it had (aftermarket) purple and black seats.

When it started to die in 2012, we bought a Mini. Wife, again, wanted a non-color vehicle, but I vetoed. We ended up with Chili Red (but with black "rally" stripes).

Gotta Wonder...

Ever since the shooting in Vegas, last year, any time a mass-shooting makes the news and I see various people screaming "something needs to be done", I can't help but wonder, "was the shooter's the real intent to prove that there's really nothing you can do to prevent mass shootings":

• Background investigations? Passed them.
• Use of aftermarket stuff to increase rate of fire on otherwise non-cyclic weapons? Yup.
• Using a cache of pre-loaded weapons to obviate the question of limiting magazine-sizes? Yup
• Using a cache of pre-loaded weapons to overcome the types of heating problems you encounter when you make a civilian-grade weapon operate at near-
• military fire-rates? Yup.
• Inclusion of weapons in the cache that wouldn't have been covered by a ban of weapons that *resemble* military-grade weapons? Yup.

The only real thing he "missed" - at least as far as what's made it to news outlets - was including 3D printed weapons, magazines or bump-stocks. ...He also missed out on using homemade bullets. Basically, stuff that's fairly trivially done and no amount of regulation is *ever* going to prevent (at least, not in the case of an adequately-determined malefactors). Stuff that's really only going to get easier to do as technology advances.

I mean, sure, you could try to wholly ban guns, but how well have bans on alcohol and drugs worked out over the years. And, really, that's part of the irony of the "do something" crowd: many of the same people that say "legalize drugs because prohibition just doesn't work" are among the throngs that think that either outright banning all guns or just the "particularly awful" ones will somehow magically work where previous prohibitions have failed.

Am I saying it won't cut down on the number of incidents? No. It would probably greatly cut down on the number of newsworthy incidents. Problem is, it would probably also make it so that when incidents do happen, they're far more likely to be Vegas-style ...or, come by other forms of mayhem (Boston 2013, anyone?).