Customers at some grocery stores in Alabama, Oklahoma and Texas are now able to pick up ammunition with their foodstuffs from new vending machines.

To verify the legality of the purchase, the machines scan a customer’s driver’s license and also perform a 360-degree scan of their face. Only consumers ages 21 or older can buy from the machines.

There are kiosks at a Fresh Value in Pell City, Alabama, four Super C Marts in Oklahoma and a Lowe’s Market in Canyon Lake, Texas. The automated ammunition retail machines are made and installed by American Rounds LLC.

New kiosks are being installed at another Lowe’s Market in Canyon Lake and at a LaGree’s Food Stores location in Buena Vista, Colorado, soon, American Rounds CEO Grant Magers told Newsweek.

Rounds for shotguns, rifles and handguns are available to buy from the machines, though the inventory of each machine can vary from location to location and by season.

“We had someone tell us that they wanted a .410 shotgun round in this particular community because a lot of the folks there will use that for varmints and snakes and things like that that get on their property,” Mr. Magers told NPR.

There is no limit on how much ammo a person can buy from each kiosk at a time. Depending on sales, each machine gets restocked every two to four weeks, Mr. Magers told Oklahoma City ABC affiliate KOCO-TV.

A Fresh Value in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, carried the kiosk but dropped it due to a lack of sales, the manager of the store told Birmingham, Alabama, ABC affiliate WBMA-LD.

The firm has received inquiries from stores in other states.

“We had requests in Hawaii, requests in Alaska, from California to Florida and every state in between for the most part. We have currently about 200 grocery stores that we’re working on fulfilling orders on machines for,” Mr. Magers told NPR.

While they approve greater scrutiny over the sale of ammunition, gun control advocates do not agree with putting the automated kiosks in supermarkets.

“Innovations that make ammunition sales more secure via facial recognition, age verification, and the tracking of serial sales are promising safety measures that belong in gun stores, not in the place where you buy your kids milk,” Nick Suplina, senior vice president of law and policy at gun control group Everytown for Gun Safety, told the Associated Press.

Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence President Kris Brown agreed, saying in a statement that “the gun industry will stop at nothing to make the sale of guns and ammunition as easy as possible – even if it means making them as accessible as a can of soda … We need to remove these machines from our grocery stores, and we need to do it now.”

Mr. Magers counters that online sellers only ask the consumer to check a box saying they are the right age, and that gun shops put boxes of ammo out in the open. Both situations, he argues, are liable for theft and unverified purchases. By comparison, each kiosk locks ammunition behind 2,000 pounds of steel.

“When you put it in context in terms of availability, we’re the safest and most secure on the market, and that’s what we want. We’re bettering our communities by being responsible in terms of how we sell ammunition,” he told USA Today.

• Brad Matthews can be reached at bmatthews@washingtontimes.com.