A Texas-based company has developed vending machines that sell bullets and installed them at a handful of grocery stores in Texas, Oklahoma, and Alabama, with plans for expansion into other states, according to news reports this week.

The machines, produced by American Rounds, based in the Dallas area, use artificial intelligence to verify the age of buyers, who must be 21 to purchase the shotgun, rifle, and handgun bullets on offer.

There are few federal regulations on the sale of ammunition, and only a small number of states have their own tougher laws.

The vending machines are “likely to stoke controversy,” Newsweek reported, while Gizmodo called their spread a “questionable new trend.” Social media users wrote that the idea of vending machines for bullets was “insane”, “horrible,” and “beyond sick.”

“In some states, you can now walk into a grocery store and buy bullets from a vending machine as if you were ordering a candy bar or a soda,” Gizmodo reported, though it explained that the process was “slightly […]