After three trials and nearly ten years of trying to pin the accidental shooting death of a 14 year old California boy on poor gun design, Sarah Brady and her gun ban group have struck out.

Kenzo Dix was killed when his friend played with a firearm that was left loaded and unlocked by an irresponsible parent. The jury deliberated only five hours before returning a verdict in favor of Beretta U.S.A. Corp., finding the pistol's design did not cause the accident. [...]

This was the third time the case had been tried. The lawsuit was filed in 1995 on behalf of the parents of Dix by lawyers from Handgun Control Inc. (since renamed as Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence). Handgun Control Inc. tried to claim Beretta was at fault for not having included a built-in lock and for not providing more warnings by having a different "loaded chamber indicator" feature than the one on the firearm. [...]

The Dix case was the first major lawsuit filed and funded by the Brady Center against a firearms manufacturer in an attempt to use litigation to force the redesign of firearms to include so-called "safety" devices. The Brady Center has filed similar suits against other manufacturers.

"The Brady Center has struck out. This jury -- as two others before it -- listened carefully to all the evidence and again refused to blame the product manufacturer for reckless misuse of its product," said Lawrence G. Keane, senior vice president and general counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation, the firearm industry's trade association.

"Unquestionably, the Brady Center has suffered a major setback in its efforts to use the courts to force its gun control agenda upon product manufacturers and their design engineers who care deeply about the safety of consumers and who design safe and reliable products," Keane added.

The basic concepts of firearm technology havn't changed much in several hundred years. You pull the trigger and a projectile flies out the other end very very fast. The simple fact is that all the safety devices in the world are useless when someone recklessly points a gun at someone else and pulls the trigger.