FBI Director Kash Patel reportedly gave top law enforcement officials in New Zealand 3D-printed guns, which violates the country’s laws, according to The Associated Press.
Patel presented the plastic 3D-printed replica pistols, which are inoperable, to at least three senior New Zealand security officials during a visit to Wellington to open the FBI’s first standalone office.
But New Zealand’s strict gun laws bar citizens from owning a pistol, operable or not, without an additional permit beyond a regular gun license. It was unclear if the officials receiving the guns had such a license and even if they did, they couldn’t have kept the pistols.
The country’s laws also treat inoperable weapons as though they’re operable if modifications could make them workable again. Officials sought advice from the regulator that enforces New Zealand’s gun laws the next day.
The pistols gifted to officials by Patel were judged by gun regulators to be potentially operable and were destroyed.
“To ensure compliance with firearms laws, I instructed Police to retain and destroy them,” New Zealand’s Police Commissioner Richard Chambers said.
