ERPO: Civil Approach to Gun Violence Prevention

Joshua Horwitz, J.D., is the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, with nearly three decades of experience in gun violence prevention. He is dedicated to developing innovative strategies for the gun violence prevention movement. In 2007, his research and advocacy played a key role in enacting California's groundbreaking microstamping law, which allows law enforcement to trace firearms through markings on expended cartridge casings left at crime scenes. In 2009, his book Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea, published by the University of Michigan Press, was the first to highlight how the gun lobby's “Second Amendment remedies” and insurrectionist ideology undermine democracy, the rule of law, and critical societal institutions. Josh’s work helped mainstream the concept of insurrectionism. In 2013, he co-founded the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, a group of mental health and public health experts focused on the intersection of guns and mental health. The Consortium’s policy recommendations contributed to the creation of California's Gun Violence Restraining Order (GVRO) law, the first of its kind in the nation, passed in 2014. Josh is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received his law degree from George Washington University. He serves as a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, where he teaches public health advocacy, and is a regular contributor to The Hill.