Elizabeth Warren and Ed Markey may not know much about firearms or even the federal gun regulations that are already in place, but the senators from Massachusetts are experts when it comes to grandstanding on the issue of gun control. Their latest song-and-dance is a demand that the ATF investigate the ammunition vending machines that have become an obsession with gun control outfits like Brady and Giffords. 

In a letter to ATF Director Steve Dettelbach, the pair claim that the machines, which are currently located in a handful of stores in Alabama, Texas, Oklahoma, and Colorado, “threaten to make ammunition more widely available and accessible in our communities, especially to prohibited individuals and those who pose a threat to public safety,” adding that the vending machines “also use often unreliable and inaccurate facial recognition technology for identity verification.’

And there are inherent risks in stocking large amounts of combustible ammunition at grocery stores. We urge the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) to closely examine these automated ammunition vending machines and their place in the federal gun safety regulatory scheme, and use the full extent of the Bureau’s authority to prohibit them in supermarkets, grocery stores, and other general retailers frequented by people of all ages and walks of life.

It’s hard to know where to begin with the idiocy on display here, but l guess Warren and Markey’s concern about storing “combustible ammunition” is as good a place as any. I don’t know how often the senators shop for themselves, but at my local grocery store (which, sadly, doesn’t have an automated ammo vending machine in the lobby) I can pick up a tank full of propane, along with lighter fluid, rubbing alcohol, charcoal, nail polish, and other items that are also combustible. It’s distinctly possible that the Massachusetts senators would like to see those items disappear from store shelves as well, but there’s nothing inherently dangerous about the ammo stored in American Rounds’ machines. 

Warren and Markey also fail to explain why the ammo vending machines would make ammunition any more available to prohibited individuals than it already is. Federal law doesn’t require background checks for ammunition purchases, but even if it did, criminals in states with similar restrictions already in place like California and New York don’t seem to have any trouble getting their hands on all the ammunition they need. 

It’s also highly ironic that Markey complains about the “unreliable and inaccurate” facial recognition software that American Rounds uses to confirm the identify and age of an ammo purchaser, given that he has repeatedly introduced legislation mandating that the only handguns sold in the United States would be “smart guns” that use RFID, fingerprint readers, and yes, facial recognition software. In fact, Markey’s legislation not only prohibits the sale of regular handguns five years after his bill’s enactment. It requires existing gun owners to retrofit their handguns with “smart gun” technology within ten years of the bill’s passage; a virtual impossibility that would render the vast majority of handgun owners criminals (or force them to disarm themselves). 

While the senators want to know if the ATF has any regulatory power to prohibit the machines (it doesn’t), the two also want Dettelbach to weigh in with his thoughts on whether Congress should require background checks on ammunition sales. That, I suspect, is what’s really behind the letter to the ATF. It’s not that the machines themselves are so concerning. It’s that they represent a new approach to the same, stale anti-2A policies the pair have been pushing for years.