FBI director Kash Patel’s July visit to New Zealand has caught public attention, but for the wrong reasons. Patel, who flew to Wellington to meet the country’s police and spy officials, gifted them plastic 3D-printed guns, which are symbolic or decorative pieces. But the guns had to be destroyed, thanks to the country’s gun laws.
The replica pistols were part of the display stands Patel presented to at least three senior New Zealand security officials in July, AP News quoted New Zealand officials. The visit to open the FBI’s first standalone office in New Zealand.
While the pistols were inoperable ones, New Zealand’s law mandates that it be treated as “operable” if they can be modified to make them workable again. The pistols were judged by gun regulators to be potentially operable and were destroyed, New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers told AP in a statement Tuesday.
Besides Chambers, Andrew Hampton, Director-General of the country’s human intelligence agency NZSIS, and Andrew Clark, Director-General of the technical intelligence agency GCSB, are also recipients of the gift.
Chambers said they discovered the weapons were potentially operable after they were examined. “To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed the police to retain and destroy them,” Chambers said. Under New Zealand’s law, this means temporary disabling of the gun’s firing mechanism.
It is unclear whether the FBI sought permission before flying the weapons into Wellington.
New Zealand has one of the strictest firearm laws in the developed world. As per norms, pistols are tightly restricted and require special permits, and 3D-printed guns need an additional permit. The law was tightened especially after the 2019 Christchurch massacre.