Jury Clears Beretta in Accidental Shooting

Handgun Control, Inc., has struck out in a third retrial of a case that has garnered national attention. Shortly before we went to press, the NSSF’s online news service reported that an Alameda County (California) Superior Court jury found that Beretta U. S. A. Corp. was not responsible for a 1994 accidental shooting death of a 14-year-old boy. 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 victim’s parents by lawyers from Handgun Control Inc. (since renamed the 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 case gained national media attention in late 1998 when a jury in the first trial found that the design of the Beretta pistol was not defective and did not cause the accident.

An appellate court, however, ordered a retrial because a juror allegedly told fellow jurors he didn’t think Beretta was at fault before the jury began its deliberations. In a retrial last year, the plaintiffs were again unable to convince a jury that the pistol’s design was defective and caused the accident resulting in a mistrial.

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.

He noted that the number and rate of firearm accidents are at their lowest levels since record keeping began in 1903. And, of course, since 1903 the number of firearms in private ownership has grown significantly. Editor Keith Lawrence Technical