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Serious question. Without Cloak Rooming the thread, can someone explain what the outrage is.  I must be missing something.

Is this somehow easier for a minor to fool?  Is there some aspect of this that meets the letter of the law but bypasses the intent of the law?    Is this seen as faster or easier than walking into somewhere like Academy and going to the self serve ammo aisle?     Or is the outrage coming from the same place as the hate for self-service order kiosks inside fast food places.

I bought some shotgun shells a few weeks ago at Academy and they didn't ask for my ID.  If I had paid with cash, it would have been mostly anonymous.  I'm sure Academy has security cameras pointed at the registers, but I doubt they are running any facial id software and I doubt they are making sure they get a clear face shot.    

 

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I'll add a bit to oxbeaf's question.

To the best of my knowledge, anyone can legally purchase ammo reloading equipment and supplies including primers, powder, casings and bullets. I think the re-loaders are still available for purchase at Walmart and Academy.

So why this hill? I'm not endorsing these machines nor condemning, just guessing the reality I posted above was something many weren't aware existed.

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9 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Serious question. Without Cloak Rooming the thread, can someone explain what the outrage is.  I must be missing something.

 

I'm of the opinion of "is this truly necessary in society?"  There's plenty of places to purchase ammo.

Why isn't there porn vending machines?  Or Bible vending machines?  There may be, but I've never heard of them.  

How about baby formula?  Motor oil?  

 

 

 

 

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10 minutes ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

I bought some shotgun shells a few weeks ago at Academy and they didn't ask for my ID.  If I had paid with cash, it would have been mostly anonymous.  I'm sure Academy has security cameras pointed at the registers, but I doubt they are running any facial id software and I doubt they are making sure they get a clear face shot

Appears to be a method for safer and more verifiable legal purchasing. Facial recognition, ID recognition.  Including  bitching and complaining from the “we just want better ID and sure fire legal purchase group”. Surprised face ——->  

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44 minutes ago, fattyflattie said:

Appears to be a method for safer and more verifiable legal purchasing. Facial recognition, ID recognition.  Including  bitching and complaining from the “we just want better ID and sure fire legal purchase group”. Surprised face ——->  

I'm pretty sure, given folks working at the Walmart and Academy, it's a much higher level of scrutiny and likely wouldn't even be used that much cause "they ain't gettin' my name". 

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Posted (edited)
58 minutes ago, Francisco 2.0 said:

 

I'm of the opinion of "is this truly necessary in society?"  There's plenty of places to purchase ammo.

Why isn't there porn vending machines?  Or Bible vending machines?  There may be, but I've never heard of them.  

How about baby formula?  Motor oil? 

Porn vending machines? I mean, they have those massive porn stores on the interstates which I'm sure are fantastic, and maybe porn vending machines could work at non-porn warehouse truck stops.

 

So.. upon further review... 

Bibles are free somewhere. (Edit - ya know, anyone in need of a Bible urgently is likely a pederast. The FBI should look into "Free Bible" vending machines.)

Baby formula.. Hmm.. maybe outside the excessive number of nail salons, "vintage" clothing stores and yoga places.

Motor oil? Just don't see the market unless placed in a location that a TON of Porsche 911 drivers frequent.

My bet, porn vending machines that "includes" a "free" subscription to "xxxtruckerpornxxxdotcom" via QR code on back of tape.

I'm in. 

Edited by BurntEyes
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I'd estimate about 20% of the gun owners I know keep their ammo in a different location in the house than the firearm.  Some kinda rifle upright case with glass to show 'em off, with some pistols (or they're spread around the house or garage or vehicles or camper or shed or on top of a bookcase, but again not next to the ammo.  All empty and cleared.  

Then, they keep the ammo in some other part of the house/property.  Probably under lock 'n key like a responsible owner.  Only they can access it, not the kids or drunk uncle staying with them for the summer.  Plenty of time to get it together for hunting or range time.  In the case of a break-in, they know where one magazine is locked away on the way to the egress of the home with the pistol already in hand.  

What if drunk uncle or the kids, whom are unable to access the ammo, decide they need to do some shooting?  Break open the rifle case or go find the pistol hidden in the tool shed or in the boat trailer, take along the ammo they anonymously purchased from the machine and go hurting?  What if I'm a felon with a blackmarket gun but can't by ammo from a legit outlet because they'll ID me, especially after I pull out a buncha cash?  "Say kid, I'll give you $20 to over to that grocery store and pick me a box of 380 ACP rounds.  Here's the cash and/or pre-paid visa debit card that anybody can get at a convenience store to pay for the box."  

Yeah, that kinda shady shit never happens in America.  Nothing to be worried about.

 

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Posted (edited)
4 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

I'd estimate about 20% of the gun owners I know keep their ammo in a different location in the house than the firearm.  Some kinda rifle upright case with glass to show 'em off, with some pistols (or they're spread around the house or garage or vehicles or camper or shed or on top of a bookcase, but again not next to the ammo.  All empty and cleared.  

Then, they keep the ammo in some other part of the house/property.  Probably under lock 'n key like a responsible owner.  Only they can access it, not the kids or drunk uncle staying with them for the summer.  Plenty of time to get it together for hunting or range time.  In the case of a break-in, they know where one magazine is locked away on the way to the egress of the home with the pistol already in hand.  

What if drunk uncle or the kids, whom are unable to access the ammo, decide they need to do some shooting?  Break open the rifle case or go find the pistol hidden in the tool shed or in the boat trailer, take along the ammo they anonymously purchased from the machine and go hurting?  What if I'm a felon with a blackmarket gun but can't by ammo from a legit outlet because they'll ID me, especially after I pull out a buncha cash?  "Say kid, I'll give you $20 to over to that grocery store and pick me a box of 380 ACP rounds.  Here's the cash and/or pre-paid visa debit card that anybody can get at a convenience store to pay for the box."  

Yeah, that kinda shady shit never happens in America.  Nothing to be worried about.

 

They can get the gun and ammo illegally and pick up some coke, heroin or meth at the same in most major cities. Many of which they could not purchase a gun or ammo legally in anyway. 

Why steal from family and go to a legitimate store with cameras.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Yeah.  Most of the black marketeers I know through colleagues, sell firearms but they don't sell ammo.  Too tough to maintain proper inventory, margins are for shit, take up a lotta space, raise a lotta eyebrows.  Having one handgun on you is one thing, having rounds for 20 different kinds of weapons is kinda of a question mark.  Just the volume of storage they need is a pain in the ass.  Obviously the sales still happen but not as much as people think.  

Plus, just from a market standpoint...why bother getting deeper into the ammo business when next to the stuffed animal claw machine at Brookshire Bros. grocer, you can just pick up the boxes you need for half the price?  

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Yeah.  Most of the black marketeers I know through colleagues, sell firearms but they don't sell ammo.  Too tough to maintain proper inventory, margins are for shit, take up a lotta space, raise a lotta eyebrows.  Having one handgun on you is one thing, having rounds for 20 different kinds of weapons is kinda of a question mark.  Just the volume of storage they need is a pain in the ass.  Obviously the sales still happen but not as much as people think.  
Plus, just from a market standpoint...why bother getting deeper into the ammo business when next to the stuffed animal claw machine at Brookshire Bros. grocer, you can just pick up the boxes you need for half the price?  

What are you talking about?
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1 hour ago, 0xdeadbeef said:

Serious question. Without Cloak Rooming the thread, can someone explain what the outrage is.  I must be missing something.

Is this somehow easier for a minor to fool?  Is there some aspect of this that meets the letter of the law but bypasses the intent of the law?    Is this seen as faster or easier than walking into somewhere like Academy and going to the self serve ammo aisle?     Or is the outrage coming from the same place as the hate for self-service order kiosks inside fast food places.

I bought some shotgun shells a few weeks ago at Academy and they didn't ask for my ID.  If I had paid with cash, it would have been mostly anonymous.  I'm sure Academy has security cameras pointed at the registers, but I doubt they are running any facial id software and I doubt they are making sure they get a clear face shot.    

 

Your mom.  $6.50 in a vending machine. That’s how stupidly easy it was.  Any of it.  

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Why a lot of underground gun salesman don't both to offer ammo because of the myriad complications.  The vending machine solves for that, that's all.  Sometimes bad people buy guns illegally and then have a challenging time getting the ammo for them.  This solves for that.  Not always, but sometimes.  

I could never buy a bag of chew or pack of cigarettes when I was 15 at a convenience store.  So I'd walk across the street to the vending machine at the mexican restaurant and buy it there.  Every now and again, they'd ask, "Why do you need $3.00 worth of quarters."  To which I'd reply, "For the Galaga video game" 

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2 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Yeah.  Most of the black marketeers I know through colleagues, sell firearms but they don't sell ammo.  Too tough to maintain proper inventory, margins are for shit, take up a lotta space, raise a lotta eyebrows.  Having one handgun on you is one thing, having rounds for 20 different kinds of weapons is kinda of a question mark.  Just the volume of storage they need is a pain in the ass.  Obviously the sales still happen but not as much as people think.  

Plus, just from a market standpoint...why bother getting deeper into the ammo business when next to the stuffed animal claw machine at Brookshire Bros. grocer, you can just pick up the boxes you need for half the price?  

Amigo, I like ya, but this reads A LOT like an aggie post, just lacking the Tshirt gun dealers aspect and helping someone on the way to the gun purchase. 

9mm

Glock

Meth

Coke

Crack

HerRon

That's your inventory as a street level drug and gun buy all inventory shop. 

Ain't nobody getting specific about caliber of the illegal firearm and ammo they are purchasing unless they are cartel members. 

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Posted (edited)
5 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

Why a lot of underground gun salesman don't both to offer ammo because of the myriad complications.  The vending machine solves for that, that's all.  Sometimes bad people buy guns illegally and then have a challenging time getting the ammo for them.  This solves for that.  Not always, but sometimes.  

I could never buy a bag of chew or pack of cigarettes when I was 15 at a convenience store.  So I'd walk across the street to the vending machine at the mexican restaurant and buy it there.  Every now and again, they'd ask, "Why do you need $3.00 worth of quarters."  To which I'd reply, "For the Galaga video game" 

If this was happening when Galaga was still out, all you had to say is "it's for my mom/grandma" and they'd sell it to you. Ask me how I know.

Clearly you were trying to buy your supply from Tshirt tobacco dealers. 

Should have asked the nice maroon wearing gentleman in front of the store where you could purchase actual tobacco and not that fake stuff.

Edited by BurntEyes
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What if the criminal already has the gun illegally, right? What about Chicago and all that?  Okay, sometimes those guys run outta ammo and need to buy more.  They can send in a strawman to a sporting goods store, pay a 50% markup to an underground dealer and hope it hasn't been "stepped on/repackaged" in a different box, etc.  These guys pull that shit on one another every single day.  This is just easier now, "I have a 380 and we take it out to the forest to shoot in prep for the big gang war or mass shooting.  I am out of ammo but am on a felony registry, plus I ain't got no ID or credit cards.  I go buy a pre-paid debit card in cash, and then go to the ammo vending machine for 380-ready ammo direct from manufacturer and nobody knows I was ever there.  I'm not losing any sleep over it, and I may try it out for novelty for my own handgun, but of all the crazy gun stories in this country---you're telling me my scenario could never happen?  

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Just now, YGIFS said:

What if the criminal already has the gun illegally, right? What about Chicago and all that?  Okay, sometimes those guys run outta ammo and need to buy more.  They can send in a strawman to a sporting goods store, pay a 50% markup to an underground dealer and hope it hasn't been "stepped on/repackaged" in a different box, etc.  These guys pull that shit on one another every single day.  This is just easier now, "I have a 380 and we take it out to the forest to shoot in prep for the big gang war or mass shooting.  I am out of ammo but am on a felony registry, plus I ain't got no ID or credit cards.  I go buy a pre-paid debit card in cash, and then go to the ammo vending machine for 380-ready ammo direct from manufacturer and nobody knows I was ever there.  I'm not losing any sleep over it, and I may try it out for novelty for my own handgun, but of all the crazy gun stories in this country---you're telling me my scenario could never happen?  

You keep saying 380.

No real criminal has ever owned or shot a fucking 9 kurtz

You're just making shit up now.

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Dude, I was just throwing out a popular handgun as an example.  Wouldn't be Surly if we didn't get bogged down on weapon type and caliber.  

It's a metonym, placeholder, for something common in aggregate.  Just like "assault rifles", obviously there's more than just one type.  "Russian Armor", well there's 16 primary vehicle platforms with dozens of variants.  "Fighter Jets" could mean any of two-dozen fixed-wing types.  "Smith & Weston" or "Colt", make many kinds.  But people just say "S&W" as shorthand in a casual gun conversation.  "12-gauge/sawed-off/Uzi", just terms people use as a stand-in for the broader range of weapons in that sorta category.  If we spend our day using terminology down to the model variant of every single object we're discussing, we'd never finish a conversation.  You only get specific when money is on the line, until then shorthand is just easier.      

You've never heard some weapon type used as kind of a descriptor for a whole host of similar weapons?  Though the term may have jumped the shark when I heard and APD officer describe a homeless machete attack in South Austin last year, and assured us it was unrelated to a similar attack prior.  And he starts getting into the difference between the two machetes, and somebody had to cut him off like, "How the fuck you know so much about machetes, Doug?"  

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5 hours ago, NeverMarryAStripper said:

So in Texas any dipshit can go to a grocery store vending machine to get the ammo to shoot up an elementary school, but watching porn while jerking off is illegal.  

But we got it after the right wing bastion that is Colorado.  

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3 hours ago, BurntEyes said:

I'll add a bit to oxbeaf's question.

To the best of my knowledge, anyone can legally purchase ammo reloading equipment and supplies including primers, powder, casings and bullets. I think the re-loaders are still available for purchase at Walmart and Academy.

So why this hill? I'm not endorsing these machines nor condemning, just guessing the reality I posted above was something many weren't aware existed.

To me it reflects to where we are as a a society.  If this is common in other first world countries, ok.  Just seems like it’s made for barbaric mouth breathers 

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Posted (edited)

From a mechanical standpoint, do they work like most vending machines...where they open up the front like a swinging door (like soda machine or one of those airport machines that sells small electronics and earbuds)?  And then guy can pull the individual rack out and rotate the current inventory up to the front and backfill with the new shit he's dropping off?     

I see the outer facade/interface, and I assume it's a claw that just rotates around behind the door to grab the right box.  But in terms of restocking them, how does that part work?  

Edited by YGIFS
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Posted (edited)
1 hour ago, closetohumping said:

To me it reflects to where we are as a a society.  If this is common in other first world countries, ok.  Just seems like it’s made for barbaric mouth breathers 

The US has always had its own unique form of totally fucked up, from banning of alcohol in the 19th century to the largest prisons system in the world. 

That said, the weirdness isn't limited to the US, if it comes in completely different forms elsewhere in the world.

We may well be king of the barbarian mouth breathing idiots, we're not the only mouth breathing idiot country. Our brand is celebrity worship, prisons, soy loving, tech nerding, guns, money, religion, wacky cause protest and political extremes. 

Asparagus water dude. Asparagus WATER for sale.

Edited by BurntEyes
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I'm here for the unnecessary hand wringing.....

 

Silly idea? Sure, but call me back when a mass shooter or potential presidential candidate assassin gets their rounds from a vending machine because they couldn't buy them at the Walmart counter or the street corner or take them from their parents basement shelf.  We have a lot of other targets to keep guns and ammo out of the hands of psychopaths.

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What’s different?  It ain’t a quarter operated coke machine.

Lots of wasted words creating irrelevant scenarios.  It’s a different interface - same or even higher scrutiny and data capture than face to face cash at counter.  May be dumb but isn’t a game charger for the criminal element.  

But don’t let reality get in the way of outrage….

When a customer approaches the vending machine, they must agree to terms on the screen, select their desired type of bullets, insert an identification card and participate in a facial scan.

Customers have to be 21 years of age or older to purchase bullets from American Rounds’ vending machines. After the facial recognition is confirmed, a customer can swipe or insert their credit or debit card and then wait for their ammunition to be dispensed.

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Just now, Reagan1k said:

What’s different?  It ain’t a quarter operated coke machine.

Lots of wasted words creating irrelevant scenarios.  It’s a different interface - same or even higher scrutiny and data capture than face to face cash at counter.  May be dumb but isn’t a game charger for the criminal element.  

But don’t let reality get in the way of outrage….

 

When a customer approaches the vending machine, they must agree to terms on the screen, select their desired type of bullets, insert an identification card and participate in a facial scan.

Customers have to be 21 years of age or older to purchase bullets from American Rounds’ vending machines. After the facial recognition is confirmed, a customer can swipe or insert their credit or debit card and then wait for their ammunition to be dispensed.

Mentioned it several times already. The irony is this is actually, in practice, a HIGHER level of scrutiny.

Of course, on this topic logic and facts play no part in the discussion.

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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

16-year-old me doesn't have an opinion on the machines, but does wonder what would happen if you caught one on fire.

Would sound like a bunch of black cats or M80s (depending on the size of the rounds involved) going off.  It wouldn't be something you would want to be standing by as there could definitely be bits of brass casings etc flying but without a barrel, the bullets are not going to "fire" like they would in a gun.  

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13 minutes ago, BurntEyes said:

Mentioned it several times already. The irony is this is actually, in practice, a HIGHER level of scrutiny.

Of course, on this topic logic and facts play no part in the discussion.

Yep- and you’re right.  I was foolish thinking underlined facts might help. 

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If this last week has taught us anything, it's impossible for POS systems to crash and/or be hacked.  

I think, as others have said above, the safety is probably more robust than some clerk who isn't paying attention at some rural sporting goods store that doesn't have CCTV.  

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14 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Sure, it's safer in a lot of ways (until someone figures out how to hack it), but the concept in a grocery store is ludicrous.  Put em in Academy or some such.

We might all agree on that!!!

 

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Posted (edited)
53 minutes ago, TwiceHorn said:

Sure, it's safer in a lot of ways (until someone figures out how to hack it), but the concept in a grocery store is ludicrous.  Put em in Academy or some such.

Well, I can tell you for a fact MOST gun store and range owners are 100% with you on this aspect. A goodly number of them, particularly ranges, make a substantial  amount of their income off ammo sales. Hell, in my small town the local gun shop owner was complaining about the new Academy that got built and them selling ammo. 

Irony is amusing.

While I'm being amused, for the record I buy from ammo from neither local gun stores nor the big box "sporting" sections. In fact, I've sold more ammo TO local gun stores during panic buying than I have purchased.

So, I don't even have a dog in this specific hunt.

Edited by BurntEyes
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Posted (edited)
54 minutes ago, YGIFS said:

If this last week has taught us anything, it's impossible for POS systems to crash and/or be hacked.  

I think, as others have said above, the safety is probably more robust than some clerk who isn't paying attention at some rural sporting goods store that doesn't have CCTV.  

I'm nit picking here, but local gun store owners tend to be far more paranoid about "things" than a $10 per hour retail "sales associate". 

And breaking into the damn thing is going to be far more likely than it being hacked. 

Edited by BurntEyes
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