It may become easier than ever before to lock and load guns in the United States, a country plagued by gun violence, thanks to a small business keen on selling bullets in possibly the simplest way imaginable: a vending machine.
American Rounds LLC currently has its bullet vending machine operations in Alabama, Oklahoma, and Texas, though the company has plans to expand to several other states. The Dallas-based company claims that its “automated ammo retail machines” utilize artificial intelligence to ensure potential buyers are of legal purchasing age. The one-stop drop shops can be found in eight different supermarkets across the trio of Southern states.
“As a company our team are supporters of law abiding responsible gun ownership,” said Grant Magers, CEO of American Rounds, in an email to Gizmodo. “We believe in the second amendment and that … a safe and secure method to sell ammunition is needed in the market.”
Magers told NPR in a separate statement that the ammo supply company intends to open another vending machine in Colorado this week and has had “requests” to bring their services to Hawaii, Alaska, California, Florida, and “every state in between for the most part.”
“We have currently about 200 grocery stores that we’re working on fulfilling orders on machines for,” Magers told the radio network.
American Rounds is of the belief that its service is safer than the traditional method of ammunition sales, which typically sees boxes stocked on shelves in gun stores or big-box stores, such as Walmart or Cabela’s. But selling just ammunition requires very little government oversight: The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives does not require someone to obtain a federal license in order to sell bullets, and only a handful of states have passed laws necessitating background checks for their sale or purchase.
“If you look at the way it is currently sold in our country, we are the safest and most secure method of ammo retail sales on the market today,” Magers said, noting the machines also prevent underage customers from simply stealing boxes of bullets.
Critics of the easy-access machines argue that American Rounds isn’t providing any solutions that aren’t already presented by traditional gun retailers, who have the added ability to research whether someone’s criminal convictions prohibit them from buying ammunition, as well as assess a buyer’s mental and emotional state.
“A vending machine is not going to be able to say, ‘Hey are you OK?’ or ‘Why do you need this ammunition?’” George Tita, a professor of criminology, law, and society at the University of California, Irvine, told NPR.
Against the background of expanding weapons access, gun violence in the United States has become so ubiquitous that it is almost silent. In the first half of the year, 287 mass shootings across the country claimed the lives of 301 people and injured another 1,261, according to data from the Gun Violence Archive.
