Wellington, New Zealand
AP
–
On a visit to New Zealand, FBI director Kash Patel told Associate Press the gift to the inoperable pistol police and spy boss who had to be illegally destroyed under local gun laws.
The plastic 3D printed replica pistol formed part of the display stand presented to at least three New Zealand security officers in July. Patel, the most senior official in the Trump administration to date to date, has been in Wellington to open the FBI’s first independent office in New Zealand.
Pistols are weapons that are strictly restricted under New Zealand law and require additional permits beyond the regular gun license to own them. Law enforcement did not specify whether officials meeting Patel had such permissions, but if they did not, they would not have been able to legally maintain the gift.
It was not clear what permission Patel wanted to bring the weapons into the country. A Patel spokesman told the Associated Press on Tuesday that the FBI would not comment.
The pistol surrendered and was destroyed
Inoperable weapons will be treated as if they are operational in New Zealand if the changes are made feasible again. New Zealand Police Chief Richard Chambers told the Associated Press in a statement Tuesday.
Chambers did not specify how the weapon became inoperable before Patel was given. Usually, this means a temporary ineffective of the gun’s launch mechanism.
Three of New Zealand’s most powerful law enforcement agencies said they received the gift at the meeting on July 31. Chambers was one recipient, and the other two were Andrew Hampton, director of the country’s human intelligence reporting agency NZSIS, and Andrew Clark, director of the Technical Intelligence Reporting Agency GCSB, according to a joint statement from their department.
A spokesman for the Spy Agency described the gift as a “challenge coin display stand” that includes 3D printed operable weapons “as part of the design.” The next day, the authorities sought advice from New Zealand’s gun law regulators on gifts, Chambers said.
When weapons were inspected, they were discovered to be potentially manipulated.
“To ensure compliance with the Firearms Act, I instructed the police to hold them and destroy them,” Chambers said.
James Davidson, a former FBI agent who is now president of the FBI Integrity Project, is a nonprofit that seeks to protect the bureau from unfair partisan influence and criticizes Patel’s appointment.
However, Davidson said the gift of a replica pistol appeared in “real gestures” from Patel, and the destruction was “frankly an overreaction by NZSIS, which could simply render the replica inoperable.”
New Zealand has strong gun controls
3D printed weapons are treated like any other gun in New Zealand. The country has tightened gun restrictions following the 2019 white supremacist attacks on two mosques in Christchurch.
The Patel, the gun given to the law enforcement secretary, was not a semi-automatic model currently banned after the Christchurch massacre. However, there are other reasons why New Zealanders may not be able to legally own certain weapons, including the specific permits required for a pistol.
New Zealand does not have a passionate culture of gun ownership, and since mass shootings, weapons have been considered dimier. Gun ownership is enshrined as a privilege, not a right, under New Zealand law.
The country is not short of guns. It is commonly found in rural areas for pest control. However, violent gun crimes are rare, and many city residents may not even have seen firearms in person.
It’s rare to see a police officer carrying a weapon. Frontline officers are usually not armed with patrols and leave their weapons trapped in their vehicles.
The news of Patel’s visit caused ripples in New Zealand at the time. This is because the opening of a new FBI field office in Wellington was not revealed to news outlets or the public until it had already happened. In a July FBI statement, the move said New Zealand is aligned with FBI missions in the other five eyes.
The office will provide local missions to FBI staff, which have been monitored and operated from Canberra, Australia since 2017, the statement said.
Public records revealed to local press this month revealed that Patel met and dined elected officials, including more than 12 senior civil servants and ministers, during his visit. The number of staff members who received the pistol as a gift on Tuesday was not immediately clear.
Patel had already caused mild diplomatic discomfort in Wellington by proposing a statement provided to a reporter that New Zealand aimed to counter China’s influence in the South Pacific. The comments urged polite fire from Wellington officials. He said that strengthening the FBI’s presence was primarily cooperation on child exploitation and drug smuggling crimes. Beijing condemned Patel’s comments.
