Does your grocery list sound something like this: Bananas? Check. Baby food? Check. Bullets? Check?
An increasing number of grocery stores have vending machines selling ammunition. So far, they're mostly in Alabama and Oklahoma, but these machines will be heading West.
“Shoppers are happy about it. They love it,” said Grant Magers, CEO of American Rounds, the company that created the vending machines.
The first ammunition vending machine in the West will be in Colorado, followed by ones in Utah and Nevada. He said that he has gotten orders for the vending machines from every state in the U.S.
Magers said his steel-encased, tamper-proof vending machines are more secure than other ways of selling ammunition.
“If you walk into one of those big sporting goods stores, (ammunition) just sits on a shelf openly. It's a high-theft item,” he said.
Typically, Magers said IDs are rarely checked at stores. And verification is not likely online.
“And any 15-year-old with their parent’s credit card can order a thousand rounds and have it sent to their house,” he said.
American Rounds also uses AI technology for verification. Only purchasers over 21 can use these vending machines.
“And we believe that if more companies took the steps we are taking to make ammunition sales safer, we'll have less tragedy,” Magers said.
But not everyone feels that way.
“If I could sum it up in one sentence, literally, my heart sank.”That's what Nevada State Assembly member Sandra Jauregui thought when she heard about American Rounds vending machines heading to western states.
Jauregui is also a survivor of the 2017 Harvest Music Festival mass shooting in Las Vegas. The tragedy claimed 60 lives and left hundreds injured. This year marks the seventh anniversary of the shooting, and Las Vegas will hold a remembrance vigil on Oct. 1.
Las Vegas created the Healing Garden downtown as a memorial. Its centerpiece is a serene water fountain. Throughout the garden are pictures of those whose lives were lost seven years ago.
Jauregui has backed several gun safety measures, including universal background checks and banning bump stocks and ghost guns. She says ammunition vending machines will only make things worse.
“They are literally going against the tide of everything state legislatures across the country are working on to keep our communities safe,” she said.
According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have already been more than 350 shootings this year. And according to Education Week, there have been over 200 school shootings since 2018.
So far, efforts to curb gun violence nationally have focused on weapon accessibility, not ammunition. Jauregui is considering legislation limiting large-quantity ammunition purchases and keeping track of them.
“Because we know that access to large quantities of ammunition will become an accelerant to mass killings,” Jauregui said. “And Stephen Paddock … By the time he stopped firing and killed himself, he still had over 10 magazines left that had hundreds of rounds left.”
For Jauregui the memories of the mass shooting she survived have remained vivid for years.
“We're hearing the shots. We think it's fireworks until we realize what's happening. I remember that…it was traumatizing, right? Like seeing the people shot, seeing the people on the ground,” she said.
“It can be very lonely to have been in an incident like this, a mass violence, and not be around other people to understand what you're feeling and what you're going through.”
Helping people cope with that ongoing trauma is one reason the Resiliency and Justice Center in Las Vegas was established.
“When people are struggling and they’re isolated, it just goes downhill from there,” said Tennille Pereira, director of the center.
But a mass shooting touches everyone, Perreira said. Las Vegas was one of several cities that participated in a recent study on the effects of mass shootings on communities. It found that in general, a community has a level of PTSD at 4.7%. But in communities that have experienced mass shootings, PTSD levels increase to 23.7%.
“It's five times the normal rate,” Pereira said.
Even with these concerns, Magers stresses that his company has safety in mind with the ammunition vending machines.
“We have a responsibility to make things as safe as possible while respecting the Second Amendment,” Magers said.
Pereira has a counter to that sentiment:
“Yes, we have the Second Amendment rights, but we also should have a right to be safe.”
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio (KNPR) in Las Vegas, Boise State Public Radio in Idaho, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Colorado and KANW in New Mexico, with support from affiliate stations across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting.
