Gunowners will be able to buy bullets '24/7' from vending machines that are 'as easy to use as an ATM' installed in grocery stores across three states

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Americans in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas, are now able to go into grocery stores and pickup ammo straight out of a vending machine that's 'as easy to use as an ATM.' 

American Rounds, the company behind the innovation, says that the machines are similar to traditional vending machines but use sophisticated AI facial recognition software to ensure that the purchase is legal. 

The majority of laws around the purchase of ammo in the US revolve around age restrictions. Federal law demands that purchasers of ammo for rifles must be 18 and for handguns, 21. 

There is no limitations on the amount of ammunition that buyers can purchase. 

'Our smart retail automated ammo dispensers have built-in AI technology, card scanning capability and facial recognition software,' the company boasts on its website. 

'Each piece of software works together to verify the person using the machine matches the identification scanned.'

According to American Rounds, the machines use AI facial recognition software to ensure the purchaser is over 18

There are no limits placed on the amount of ammo that a purchaser can buy 

The presence of the machines was first reported at the beginning of July with Cleveland.com mentioning that they were operational in six locations across Oklahoma and Alabama. 

Shortly afterwards, the presence of a machine in Tuscaloosa became the subject of a city council meeting leading to its removal because of zoning issues. The store maintains it was removed because of lack of sales. 

'We are still happy to be working with Fresh Value, Pell City, and we have plans to expand with Fresh Value to their other locations,' American Rounds CEO Grant Magers told Al.com.

'The city of Tuscaloosa has been very supportive, and we are thankful for that support,' he added. 

The company is currently looking at expanding its operations into Louisiana and Colorado. In an interview with Newsweek, Magers said that the machines were now in four states and that it will shortly be expanded to eight. 

'We have over 200 store requests for AARM [Automated Ammo Retail Machine] units covering approximately nine states currently and that number is growing daily,' he said. 

In terms of legalities, on American Rounds' website, Magers reminds users of the vending machines that state laws often dictate that records be kept on ammo purchases, something that his products adhere to. 

In January, the US surgeon general declared gun violence a public health crisis, driven by the fast-growing number of injuries and deaths involving firearms in the country.

American Rounds, the company behind the innovation, says that the machines are not that similar to traditional vending machines in that they use AI facial recognition software to ensure the purchase is legal

Jonathon Candy, pictured with his wife, Lindsay, killed his family in an horrific mass shooting in April in Oklahoma where American Rounds now sells its ammo 

 The advisory issued by Dr. Vivek Murthy, the nation's top doctor, came as the U.S. grappled with another summer weekend marked by mass shootings that left dozens of people dead or wounded.

'People want to be able to walk through their neighborhoods and be safe,' Murthy told The Associated Press in a phone interview at the time. 

'America should be a place where all of us can go to school, go to work, go to the supermarket, go to our house of worship, without having to worry that that's going to put our life at risk.'

To drive down gun deaths, Murthy calls on the U.S. to ban 'assault weapons and large-capacity magazines for civilian use,' introduce universal background checks for purchasing guns, regulate the industry, pass laws that would restrict their use in public spaces and penalize people who fail to safely store their weapons.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, over 1,300 people died as a result of gun violence in 2022 in Alabama, where the first vending machines appeared, the fourth highest in the country.

In May, the state was rocked when three people were killed and more than a dozen were wounded during a May Day event in the town of Stockton in the southern part of the state.  

In Oklahoma, around 700 people die as a result of gun violence every year. In April, a man killed his wife and three of their four children in an horrific murder suicide in Oklahoma City suburbs, the most recent mass shooting in the state. 

The couple's ten-year-old son was unharmed in the violence.  

Meanwhile, Texas, where American Rounds have vending machines, has the highest number of gun related deaths in the US with an average of over 4,600.  

The most recent mass shooting in the Lone Star State state occurred on July 4 in Fort Worth where three people, including two children, were killed in a shooting outside of a car wash. 

Firearms are the most common weapon used in homicides of spouses, intimate partners, children or relatives in recent years, according to data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 

Guns were used in more than half, 57 percent, of those killings in 2020, a year that saw an overall increase in domestic violence during the coronavirus pandemic.

Seventy women a month, on average, are shot and killed by intimate partners, according to the gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety.