FBI Director Kash Patel gifted New Zealand law enforcement and intelligence officials with inoperable pistols that are illegal to carry without a specific permit under local gun laws. The guns were destroyed as a result. The gift came during Patel’s trip to the country earlier this year, according to The Associated Press.
The guns were 3D-printed replica pistols that made up part of display stands Patel gave to at least three senior New Zealand law enforcement officials in July. Patel presented the inoperable pistols to them in Wellington to commemorate the opening of an FBI office in New Zealand.
New Zealand’s law on pistols
Pistols are highly restricted in New Zealand. Both a standard gun license and a special permit are required for handgun ownership.
New Zealand law does not differentiate 3D-printed pistols from standard pistols, and gun ownership is classified as a privilege, not a right. Even police officers are not always armed. Guns are more common in rural parts of the country but not in urban areas, according to the AP.
Officials did not disclose to the AP whether the law enforcement personnel to whom Patel gifted the pistols were permitted or not to possess the pistols. However, officials said the guns could not be lawfully kept as gifts.
It’s also unclear if Patel was granted special permissions to bring the pistols into New Zealand. The FBI declined to comment on Tuesday.
Why inoperable guns were destroyed
Although the guns were inoperable, New Zealand officials still consider them operable if modifications could make them functional again. The pistols were reportedly found by regulators to be potentially workable and were destroyed, according to a statement from New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers to the AP.
Chambers, however, did not reveal how firearms were made to be inoperable, but standard methods to do so reportedly include temporarily immobilizing the firing function.
Former FBI agent James Davidson said the gifts appeared to be “a genuine gesture” from Patel and called the confiscation and destruction of the pistols “an overaction” by New Zealand authorities.
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