Impulse Purchase

Impulse merchandising is everywhere. How often have we stood in a checkout line with one item and ended up buying a cartful of candy, magazines, and doo-dads?

Now, grocery customers in Texas, Oklahoma, Alabama, and Colorado, can pick up live ammo at the registers alongside breath mints and the latest issue of The National Enquirer. Bleeding Heart Liberals are concerned that easy availability of ammunition could lead to impulsive purchases by people seeking to do harm to themselves or to others. Feeling suicidal at 3 AM? You can’t buy ammo for your trusty Glock at Wal-Mart. It’s closed. But the 24 hour Piggly-Wiggly’s Ammo Kiosk is always open!

Ammo kiosks are expanding. There will be more than one hundred in nearly every state next year.

American Rounds is the company selling ammo kiosks. They tout these safety features:

No transparent panel to view the goods. “Ammo is not sitting on a shelf like a loaf of bread.” Of course, no one has ever been killed by a projectile of Wonder Bread.

The same ID requirements as airport TSA. Does a bored guy in a blue shirt check your driver’s license against the name on your ticket? Or is it that facial recognition stuff?

Kiosk ammo can only be sold to customers 21 years and older. Surprisingly, Federal law has no age restriction on ammo purchases. “Kyle, on your way home from Kindergarten, can you pick up one hundred rounds of armor-piercing 30.06. Have them put it on my tab.”

Ads on kiosk screens show the National Suicide Prevention Hotline number before every use. This is akin to signs on bridges that read, “Don’t Jump. Seek Help.” Those signs, by the way, don’t work.

I heartily support impulse purchases of lip balm. Ammo, I’m not so sure about.

By Ed Dufton