In Oklahoma and Alabama, grocery stores feature vending machines where customers can buy gun ammunition.
On its website, American Rounds, the vending machine supplier, promises “ammo sales like you’ve never seen before.” The startup wants to completely transform the way that ammunition for shotguns, rifles, and pistols is marketed.
Through card scanning and facial recognition software, the automatic ammo dispenser uses artificial intelligence technology to confirm a customer’s identity and age.
When the customer inserts their photo ID, the device scans it to make sure it matches the ID card.
American Rounds CEO Grant Magers stated in a promotional film that the retailers were searching for a creative approach to increase ammunition sales at their establishments.
Fresh Value, a grocery store located in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, has Terry Stanley as its COO, and he expressed his excitement at providing “the first ammo kiosk.”
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The firm website states that there are currently six sites where the vending machines are offered.
A local news source reports that city council president Kip Tyner requested police chief Brent Blankley and other municipal executives to explain a vending machine that sells ammunition at the Fresh Value shop during a briefing held before the council’s regular slate of meetings in Tuscaloosa.
“I got some calls about ammunition being sold in grocery store vending machines,” Tyner stated. “I thought it was a joke, but it’s not.”
The Tuscaloosa Thread claims that the ATF has verified the legality of the machines and that the city’s police chief and other employees have confirmed this.
