A Texas-based company has started making vending machines for gun ammunition, arguing that this is the safest way to sell it.
The company, American Rounds, has already had six of those machines installed at grocery stores in Texas, Alabama and Oklahoma. Two more are set to be installed by the end of the month in Texas and Colorado, said Grant Magers, the chief executive of American Rounds.
“Our ammo is not accessible sitting on a shelf, and we are the only company that absolutely, 100 percent requires an I.D. verification,” Mr. Magers said. He also noted that most customers purchased only one or two boxes of rounds.
Gun control advocates said that ammunition should not be so easily accessible and that the problems that the vending machine’s makers claim to combat — including ammunition theft from stores and underage ammunition purchases — would be better addressed through stricter regulations.
To use the vending machines, customers follow a touch screen and select from a menu whether they want rounds for a handgun, rifle or shotgun, and then choose which specific type of ammunition they would like. Once a buyer has selected what they want, they put their ID card in a scanner and then a camera on the machine takes pictures of their face to validate their identity and show that they are at least 21. Mr. Magers said that customer data was not stored, shared or sold. Ammunition can be purchased only with a card; the kiosk does not accept cash.
Mr. Magers said that this was the most secure way to sell ammunition. “We are pro-Second Amendment, but we are also very much in favor and in support of responsible gun owners,” Mr. Magers said.
Gun ammunition can be purchased in stores and online. Under federal law, people must be at least 18 to buy ammunition for shotguns and rifles. To buy ammunition for other types of guns, people must be at least 21. Some states and local governments have stricter requirements, such as requiring licenses for ammunition purchases. The American Rounds machines require buyers to be at least 21 for all types of ammunition purchases.
There are problems with ammunition theft from stores and with people using fake or stolen identification to purchase it online. The Delaware attorney general is investigating Cabela’s, the outdoor recreation chain, because investigators believe that 500,000 rounds of ammunition were shoplifted in less than a year from a store in Christiana. A 17-year-old who killed 10 students and teachers at Santa Fe High School in Texas in 2018 had bought ammunition online.
Mr. Magers said that people who want to purchase ammunition with malicious intent are more likely to buy ammunition from somewhere where they can pay cash, not have their identification checked or buy thousands of rounds without scrutiny.
“Are they more likely to do that,” Mr. Magers said, “Or are they more likely to come to one of our stores where it’s under surveillance?”
The first American Rounds machine was installed at a Fresh Value grocery store in Pell City, Ala., in November 2023, Mr. Magers said. He said the company had since heard from a hair salon, cowboy boot store and hardware store that were interested in getting a machine.
One machine was removed from a grocery store in Tuscaloosa, Ala., earlier this month after questions about it were raised at a City Council meeting, according to Tuscaloosa Thread, a local news site. The store told the news site that the machine was removed because of poor sales.
Dan Semenza, the director of interpersonal violence research at the New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center, said that there is something lost when ammunition is sold by a machine, instead of a person who might notice that a buyer is in crisis. He also said that claims about the vending machine’s technology needed a third-party evaluation.
When Dr. Semenza first read about the machines, he said, he asked himself “why?” because it didn’t seem like they addressed any existing problems in ammunition sales. He said that the machines, combined with other recent efforts to roll back gun regulations, seemed to be a part of a push toward changing norms.
“That roll back is kind of symbolizing more of a normalization or a relaxation toward guns and ammunition in everyday life,” Dr. Semenza said.
Joshua Horwitz, the co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, also said that there were too many unknowns about how the machines could affect public safety to be installing them in stores without input from stakeholders, including legislators, law enforcement and Second Amendment supporters.
Nick Suplina, the senior vice president for law and policy at Everytown for Gun Safety, a group that campaigns for tighter gun control, said that if the vending machine’s age verification technology worked well and the machines were impervious to theft, it could be helpful for addressing issues such as underage people buying ammunition online and theft in stores. But even if those things were proven, he said, the machines did not belong in grocery stores.
“It’s not addressing the fundamental problem, even while it’s purporting to solve some of the problems,” Mr. Suplina said.
Everytown wants ammunition to be sold only by licensed dealers and for purchasers to be subject to a background check. Some people are not allowed to possess ammunition, such as those who have been convicted of a felony or who are under a domestic restraining order, but sellers, whether it’s in-person, online or by vending machine, aren’t required to check for those things under federal law. Some states, including California and New York, have stricter laws.
American Rounds said on its website that the vending machines made ammunition purchases more convenient, but Mr. Suplina said that convenience was not a hurdle for people looking to buy ammunition. An Everytown report found that there were nearly 78,000 licensed gun dealers in the United States in 2022, which is twice the number of post offices.
“In Paris, a few euros will get you a freshly baked baguette from a vending machine and in Tokyo it’s ramen,” Mr. Suplina said. “In the gun industry’s America, it’s ammo.”