Trijicon said it has had such inscriptions on its products for three decades

N. Zealand to remove Bible verses from sights

By Ray Lilley - The Associated Press
Posted : Thursday Jan 21, 2010 5:48:01 EST

WELLINGTON, New Zealand — New Zealand said Thursday that Biblical citations inscribed on U.S.-manufactured weapon sights used by New Zealand’s troops in Afghanistan will be removed, saying they are inappropriate and could stoke religious tensions.

The inscriptions on products from defense contractor Trijicon of Wixom, Michigan, came to light this week in the U.S. where Army officials said Tuesday they would investigate whether the gun sights — also used by U.S. troops in Afghanistan and Iraq — violate U.S. procurement laws.

Australia also said Thursday its military used the sights and was now assessing what to do.

Trijicon said it has had such inscriptions on its products for three decades and has never received complaints about them before. The inscriptions, which don’t include actual text from the Bible, refer numerically to passages from the book.

New Zealand defense force spokesman Maj. Kristian Dunne said that Trijicon would be instructed to remove the inscriptions from further orders of the gun sights for New Zealand and that the letters would be removed from gun sights already in use by troops.

“The inscriptions ... put us in a difficult situation. We were unaware of it and we’re unhappy that the manufacturer didn’t give us any indication that these were on there,” Dunne said. “We deem them to be inappropriate.”
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N. Zealand to remove Bible verses from sights