Gun owners in the US can now buy ammunition from vending machines in grocery stores across three different states.
Residents of Alabama, Texas and Oklahoma all have the machines, distributed by American Rounds, which uses AI technology to scan customer’s faces.
After their faces are scanned, they are run through a recognition software to verify identity prior to vending the ammunition.
Ammunition for rifles, shotguns and handguns will be stocked in the shops, with the first machine having been rolled out in Alabama last November.
Grant Magers, CEO of American Rounds, told CNN: ‘It’s not much different than setting up any other business.’
In a statement, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) said: ‘A federal license is not required to sell ammunition. However, commercial sales of ammunition must comply with state laws as well as any applicable federal laws.’
Oklahoma’s Attorney General reviewed the vending machines and found they were in line with the state’s laws.
Despite being introduced in states where guns are widely popular, not everyone is pleased with the vending machines.
Kip Tyner, a member of Tuscaloosa city council, told CNN: ‘It may be getting in the hands of people who are not that responsible. I just don’t see it as a necessity.
‘There could be a dispute, and someone got upset with someone else and instead of cooling off and having to go to the store the next day they could go to the grocery store to get ammunition and use it for the wrong reasons.’
One woman wrote online: ‘Cigarettes and antihistamines and birth control are more regulated in this country than guns are. Make it make sense.’
‘When it’s easier to get bullets than basic health care and child care, something is deeply broken,’ author Reshma Saujani wrote.
Stores in California, Florida and Hawaii have already put in offers to have machines installed in their states.
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