Page 7 - IAV Digital Magazine #598

iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine
Bullet Vending Machines Are Spreading Throughout the Country
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GQemuDBu7wc&t=105s
By Lucas Ropek
Americans love guns. Not only do roughly 40 percent of Americans say they live in a household with guns, but the U.S. beats out every other country on Earth when it comes to the ratio of guns to people (the 2nd most gun-dense coun- try is Yemen, and it’s not even close). Indeed, the U.S. is actually the only country in the world
that has more firearms than people. Congratulations, every- body. Given all that, it’s really not surprising that, in some states, you can now walk into a grocery store and buy ammunition from a vending machine as if you were buying a candy bar or a Red Bull.
Well, sorta. Not quite. The vending machine company behind this new trend, American Rounds, says it uses artificial intelligence and facial recognition tech- nologies to verify that buy- ers are of legal age to buy bullets. So it’s a slightly more rigorous process than buying a Twix.
“As a company our team are supporters of law abid- ing responsible gun owner- ship. We believe in the second amendment and that by providing a safe and secure method to sell ammunition is needed in the market,” said American Rounds CEO Grant Magers in an email, when reached for comment by Gizmodo.
Magers, who calls his
machines Automated Ammo Retail Machine, or AARMs, said that his com- pany is currently active in eight locations, including in multiple stores in Alabama, Oklahoma, Texas, and Colorado. However, he added that the company was currently seeing immense growth, and had “over 200 store requests for AARM units covering approximately 9 states cur- rently,” a number he said is “growing daily.”
There are shockingly few regulations around ammu- nition purchases in the U.S., but some of the few that exist are age-based. Federal law says you have to be at least 18 years old to buy ammunition for long guns, like rifles and shot- guns, and if you want to buy bullets for handguns, you have to be at least 21. As such, American Rounds has created an identity ver- ification mechanism for its bullet vending machines that can supposedly verify how old the person buying the ammunition is.
“Our smart retail automat- ed ammo dispensers have built-in AI technology, card scanning capability and facial recognition software,” the company’s website states. “Each piece of soft- ware works together to ver- ify the person using the machine matches the iden- tification scanned.”
Magers told Gizmodo that his company’s model was
actually safer than the existing ammunition sales model. “Currently ammuni- tion is sold off the shelf or online. These environ- ments lead to inadvertent sales to underaged pur- chasers and or (in the case of retail stores) a high theft rate. What we loved about this concept is the AARM units use state of the art ID scanners combined with facial recognition before a transaction can be made,” Magers said in an email.
Magers said that this model “ensures that the individual is of legal age and that they are who they represent themselves to be. The machines them- selves weigh up to 2000lbs and are well secured from theft. We only place them inside stores and not out- side (i.e., Redbox).” Magers added that the company has plans to “expand our product offer- ing at the machines” but couldn’t divulge the plans as they are still developing.
On July 5, a local news outlet in Alabama report- ed that a store in Tuscaloosa had removed one of the machines after “the legality of the machine was questioned” at a city council meeting. The city’s legal department admitted the machines were legal if they met proper zoning requirements. The store has said that it “removed the machine on July 3rd because of a lack of sales,” the outlet reported.
iAV - Antelope Valley Digital Magazine