New
Fad: Bullet Holes In Cars
Company Offers to Riddle Cars With .50-caliber Bullets
THE
AFFILIATED PRESS
Reported by Adam Young
by Adam Young
Company
says the bullet holes are a great accessory and give vehicles a
different look.
COMPTON,
Cal. – Some people are turning to an expensive and controversial way
of customizing their cars: paying to riddle your car with bullet
holes.
"Since
they’re real you don’t have to worry about anyone flipping you the
finger on the street. They’ll know better," says the company’s
website RiddleMeThis.com, which offers a customized house-call service
to apply .50-caliber and smaller .22-caliber holes to the family
sedan or minivan.
"Dude"
Rock, 25, hires family members and members of his organization to
customize a customers car, often while they are at home or at night.
He said he’s working his way through nursing school and has "accessorized"
dozens of cars in the Compton area since 2001.
"They’re
a great accessory," Rock said. "I guess it’s just for
the look, it’s like a fad, y’know. I honestly don’t think it will
fade, I mean, my business is doing nothing but growing. I personally
shot up three cars last Friday night."
"My
cousin Rudy, down the way, he’ll shoot a car up anywhere. I mean,
fenders, windshields, doors, even tires, because authenticity is
what he’s all about. He’ll do it all."
On
their website, they announced their intention to expand their service
to other areas.
"Yeah,
now that we’ve tapped out the local market, we’re looking to branch
out into different styles, you know, different designs because I’m
an artist, not just a business man. Maybe buckshot or somethin’
in the rural areas, and semi-automatics for that urban look, if
you know what I’m sayin’. Yeah, I’ll even shoot our name or corporate
logo into the doors, or into the hood or roof. And the holes go
pretty good with a ground effects package."
"This
new look clearly has benefits for me, ’cause it's an all cash business
and brings in a lot of loose cash."
"This
is clearly an expression of the rage and anger at capitalism by
the ghetto in artistic form. This is modern, anti-capitalist, post-modern
revolutionary art at its finest," said urban culture theorist,
author and Rap poet, Harvard Professor Cordell Johnson, who was
asked to comment on this growing trend. "Its a beautiful thing,
if you think about it."
Danielle
Merton, 21, was surprised one morning to find her 1994 Honda Accord
riddled with 10 bullet-holes.
"A
lot of people ask me about them and why my car got shot up,"
Merton said Monday. "I don’t know, but I like it. I’m going
to try to be different from now on, too. My car getting shot up
was the best thing to happen to me all year."
Merton,
who works for a rubber and plastics manufacturer, said it was cheaper
than, say, customized wheel rims.
"And
it didn’t even cost me anything. Other people have to pay thousands
of dollars to a bunch of thugs when their car is shot up" she
said.
However,
not everyone welcomes the new fad.
A
random passerby suggested that these people shouldn’t be allowed
to do this. "I don’t know why someone just doesn’t come up
with, like stickers or something that you could put on instead.
I can see shootin’ up someone else’s car, you know, but why shoot
up your own?"
"It
sends the wrong message to our youth," said Gregor Winn, Director
of the Victims’ Deserve Rights Foundation in Maryland. "It’s
like a badge of honor. It sends the wrong message. What’s next – drive
by shootings? I mean, their just running around shooting up people’s
cars and extorting money. What’s wrong with this country?"
Copyright
© 2003 The Affiliated Press. All rights reserved. This material
may not be published, broadcast, redistributed, rewritten, plagiarized,
reworded, imitated, satirized or expropriated.
Adam
Young Archives
October
23, 2003
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