I worked at Walmart for a long time. Stores are doing it to cover their butts. They get fines on top of fines when they screw up, so they try to program their cash register system with failsafes just in case. They sure can't rely on their employees to keep up with all that stuff. The computer system still busted cashiers for selling alcohol on Sunday when it was illegal to sell it in Tupelo on Sunday.
They're not required to see ID unless they're suspicious someone is afoul of the law, most of the time. I can't keep up with what's state or federal regs; Mississippi regs follow federal regs, so they can legally double-tap you at both the state level and the federal level if you're caught.
Spraypaint, glue, anything with certain chemicals that people inhale to get high on, you have to be 18 to buy them.
Air rifles and CO2 cartridges, you have to be 16 to buy them.
R-rated movies, adult magazines, and explicit lyric music, you gotta be 17 to buy them.
Mature videogames, you gotta be 17 to buy them. (They usually click this through, only consumer watchdogs "enforce" this with protests and complaints, same as music and movies. Thanks Hillary.)
Alcohol,21, cigarettes and tobacco, 18. They used to card everyone for tobacco that looks 28 or younger, now they're supposed to be carding people that look 40 or younger. Wth?
handguns-21, longarms-18, both with paperwork and a phone call to NICS that takes less time than finding a manager to sign off on the yellow sheet. They had a huge mess where they screwed up and a customer put his incorrect address on his form. They were really sweating about it. The sporting goods associate and the manager who signed off were in danger of getting fired.
Ammo, the same regs, it's a felony to tell them your cartridges are going to be fired from a rifle and you fire them from a handgun instead. I can't wait until they start fishing for that. What irks me..you can legally possess a handgun when you're 18, but you're not allowed to buy ammo for it.
Blackpowder guns, caps, powder,powder sticks-Have to be 18
State(and federal?) regs limit your purchase of powerful cold meds to one package within so many days.
Everything has a little reminder for the cashier to check the customer's ID. They do not make records of it, most of them click through based on how old they think the customer is, or they just want to get done faster so they're lazy.
The state of Mississippi had a brilliant idea years ago to catch criminals by setting up a "voluntary" system where a gun dealer had to check ID and record the name, address, SS or DL# of everyone buying ammo, from the smallest box of .22 Shorts to a pallet of doveloads. Walmart and K-mart were the only ones doing it. They had notebook on top of notebook keeping the records. All the smaller gun dealers in the state agreed that they wouldn't do it, since it was voluntary. The state finally realized it was a huge waste of time. Just because you recover 9mm shells at a crime scene doesn't mean you can haul in everyone in the county that bought 9mm shells at Wal-Mart, so they stopped the program after a year or so. Walmart saw a huge drop in their gun sales, the people voted with their checkbooks and Walmart begged the state to drop it. Even during dove season, they kept records of every person who bought shotgun shells. They practically have dove loads on the checkouts with gum and candy, but they were keeping records.
I was buying ammo online at the time, so it was a complete route around the failed system. I was absolutely shocked that they took records of me buying a small box of CB Shorts, because I didn't feel like ordering it.
