Americans in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas can now go to grocery stores and pick up ammunition directly from a vending machine that is “as easy to use as an ATM.”
American Rounds, the company behind the innovation, says the machines are not so similar to traditional vending machines in that they use facial recognition software with artificial intelligence to ensure the purchase is legal.
Most laws governing the purchase of ammunition in the United States revolve around age restrictions. Federal law requires that buyers of rifle ammunition be 18 years old, and for handguns, 21.
“Our smart retail ammo dispensers feature built-in AI technology, card scanning capabilities and facial recognition software,” the company boasts on its website.
‘Each piece of software works together to verify that the person using the machine matches the scanned ID.’
According to American Rounds, the machines use facial recognition software with artificial intelligence to ensure that the buyer is over 18 years old.
There are no limits on the amount of ammunition a buyer can purchase.
The machines were first reported in early July when Cleveland.com reported they were operational at six locations in Oklahoma and Alabama.
Shortly afterward, the presence of a machine in Tuscaloosa became the subject of a city council meeting that led to its removal due to zoning issues. The store maintains it was removed due to lack of sales.
“We continue to be excited to work with Fresh Value in Pell City and have plans to expand with Fresh Value to their other locations,” said American Rounds CEO Grant Magers. Al.com.
“The city of Tuscaloosa has been very supportive of us and we are grateful for that support,” he added.
The company is currently considering expanding its operations to Louisiana and Colorado. In an interview with Newsweek Magazine, Magers said the machines are now in four states and will soon expand to eight.
“We have over 200 orders for AARM (automatic ammunition retail vending machines) units in stores covering approximately nine states at present and that number is growing daily,” he said.
There are no limits on the amount of ammunition buyers can purchase.
In terms of legality, on the American Rounds website, Magers reminds vending machine users that state laws often dictate that records must be kept of ammunition purchases, something its products adhere to.
In January, the U.S. surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis, fueled by rapidly growing numbers of gun injuries and deaths in the country.
American Rounds, the company behind the innovation, says the machines are not so similar to traditional vending machines in that they use facial recognition software with artificial intelligence to ensure the purchase is legal.
Jonathon Candy, pictured with his wife, Lindsay, killed his family in a horrific mass shooting in April in Oklahoma, where American Rounds now sells its ammunition.
The warning issued by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the country’s top doctor, came as the United States faces another summer weekend marked by mass shootings that left dozens of people dead or injured.
“People want to be able to walk around their neighborhoods and be safe,” Murthy told The Associated Press in a telephone interview at the time.
‘America should be a place where we can all go to school, go to work, go to the grocery store, go to our house of worship, without having to worry about it putting our lives at risk.’
To reduce gun deaths, Murthy calls on the US to ban “assault weapons and high-capacity magazines for civilian use,” introduce universal background checks for gun purchases, regulate the industry, pass laws restricting their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to store their guns safely.
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, more than 1,300 people died as a result of gun violence in Alabama in 2023, the fourth-highest number in the country.
In May, the state was rocked when three people were killed and more than a dozen injured during a May Day event in the southern city of Stockton.
In Oklahoma, about 700 people die each year as a result of gun violence. In April, a man killed his wife and three of their four children in a horrific suicide in suburban Oklahoma City, the most recent mass shooting in the state.
The couple’s ten-year-old son was unharmed in the incident.
Meanwhile, Texas, where American Rounds has vending machines, has the highest number of gun-related deaths in the United States, averaging more than 4,600.
The most recent mass shooting in the Lone State occurred on July 4 in Fort Worth, where three people, including two children, were killed in a shooting outside a car wash.
Firearms are the most common weapon used in homicides of spouses, intimate partners, children or family members in recent years, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Firearms were used in more than half — 57 percent — of those murders in 2020, a year that saw an overall rise in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.
According to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, an average of seventy women are shot and killed by their intimate partners each month.