FBI director Kash Patel gifted illegal pistol replicas to New Zealand officials during his visit. The gifted pistols that were given to spy bosses and country police were made from plastic. However, they had to be destroyed since the local law makes it illegal to own the replicas.
The 3D printed plastic pistol replicas were added to the display stands that Kash Patel was presenting to the three senior officials of New Zealand in July. The Trump administration’s most senior officer to visit NZ so far, Patel, was there to open the FBI’s first office in the country.
According to New Zealand law, pistols come under heavy restrictions, and possessing one takes additional permits compared to a normal gun license. After a 2019 mosque attack, New Zealand increased gun restrictions, so specific permits are needed to own pistols in the country.
It’s unclear if the officials who received the gift had these permits, but legally, they could not have kept the pistol replicas if they did not have the right licenses. Moreover, there’s no clarity on whether Patel took any additional permissions to bring these printed plastic pistols to the country. So far, the FBI has not commented on the situation.
In New Zealand, such inoperable weapons, such as printed guns and pistols, are assumed to be operable if someone makes certain modifications to the designs. The pistols were assumed to be operable and judged over gun regulations in the county, and destroyed.
New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers did not further specify, but such guns are made inoperable and destroyed by disabling the firing mechanism. Chambers and two other officials, Andrew Hampton (Director-General of the country’s human intelligence agency NZSIS) and Andrew Clark (Director-General of the technical intelligence agency GCSB) received these guns as a gift from Kash Patel on July 31.
The spy agency’s spokesperson called the gift “a challenge coin display stand.” The stand had inoperable pistols as a part of the design. The recipient of the gift went to the regulators to get advice on the gifts. Upon examination, the pistols were potentially operable, and they had to comply with firearm laws in the country. So, the police took the pistols and destroyed them, as mentioned in Chambers’ statement.
A former FBI agent who works with the FBI Integrity Project criticized Patel, but also understood the pistol replica gifts were a genuine gesture from his side. He added, “Quite frankly, an overreaction by the NZSIS, which could have simply rendered the replica inoperable.”
