The General Assembly started its 2026 legislative session this week. Several bills related to firearm safety are among the many issues that will be considered in the House of Delegates and State Senate. Joshua Horowitz is a professor in the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health who has been following the legislative efforts with a Democratic majority Richmond. WMRA’s Calvin Pynn asked him what this session could mean for gun violence intervention in the Commonwealth.
Joshua Horowitz: Well, so I think there's a couple of things going on. Number one, there's been way too much gun violence in Virginia. So, in 2024 we saw almost 1200 Virginians die by gun violence, and that's one person every eight hours.
So, we have a continuing crisis in gun violence in Virginia. We need to do a better job. The current leg, the new legislature coming in. With, uh, with, uh, you know, supporters of gun violence prevention in the House of Delegates and in the Senate, and of course the champion in the governor's mansion, we have a unique opportunity to pass new gun laws.
The prior administration really let the policy side of this slip and didn't do, really didn't push anything. In fact, vetoed all sorts of life-saving bills. So, we think there's an opportunity to pass a, a strong group of gun violence prevention laws this year and start to make better progress in reducing gun violence in Virginia.
So, it's unique because we have a, you know, a, a brand new House of delegates in Senate and governor who are much more supportive of gun violence prevention than in the past. So, we're looking at things to pass. We want to, we wanna continue to improve the state's red flag law. We want to make, uh, we want to improve our safe storage requirements for firearms.
And most importantly, we want a robust firearm purchaser licensing bill, um, that other states have enacted with great success, and I think that we can do that. Um, and fire and purchaser licensing is, is something that's, um, popular in Virginia. It's saves lives. Other states have done it, saves lives and I think we need to do it here in Virginia.
WMRA: I want to go back real quick to the red flag law. What steps can be taken to improve the implementation of that?
Horowitz: It's a, it's a powerful law right now. We've had it since 2020, and we see that it's saving lives across the commonwealth. Right now, it's limited, um, to law enforcement and so law, so a red flag law for people who don't know, it's a civil protection order, a temporary civil protection order that allows law enforcement to go to a judge.
It's all with judicial oversight and have a firearm removed from someone who's a crisis in crisis to themselves or others, um, for up to six months. And we're seeing it being used in many locations. In Virginia, it mirrors laws and now in 22 other, uh, 21 other states. But most of those other laws allow family members to also petition a judge.
And we think in Virginia, that needs to be done. And so, we wanna add the ability of family members to, to petition a, a judge for, um, for firearm removal law. And it's important because sometimes you just don't have time to, you know, tell all the facts to law enforcement work through the bureaucracy a little bit.
Here, family members can go to court immediately when a loved one is in crisis.
WMRA: Looking through the bills here, I believe it's, uh, Senate Bill 38 from, uh Barbara Favola from Arlington. It looks like her bill addresses, a lot of that process there. Now, going back to firearm purchasing laws, there's been some polling data. What do people seem to think about that?
Horowitz: Well, interestingly, look, on election day there was some polling done. It was very clear that gun violence prevention, um. Was, uh, is a winning issue. It's also something that, um, you know, upwards of 80% of Virginians want, we want stronger gun laws.
Um, that mirrors the polling that we've done at our center, where we look at these policies from across the country and people are extremely supportive of firearm purchaser, licensing. Even gun owners are supportive of this. And so, it's a policy that makes sense. And if you don't mind, I'd like to tell you a little bit about that policy.
WMRA: Please do, yeah.
Horowitz: Yeah. Sometimes, you know. People don't understand that we don't have a license for for, for, uh, firearms in Virginia right now. Um, so right now. Other states, some, a group of other states have a purchase license. Virginia does not. There is a background check requirement, but there's other pieces that you can do to improve and make that background check system more robust.
Um, states that have done that have seen their gun violence, homicides, suicide mass violence go down. And so, when we've looked at the research. There’s four things that we think are important here. First, firearm safety training. You know, it's important that, that people know how to use a firearm. You wouldn't take a car out on the road if you didn't know how to drive it.
So, knowing how to use that firearm, and most importantly, when not to use that firearm, right? We've seen people, you know, frequently use a farm in a situation where they shouldn't, so that training becomes highly important. Second part is fingerprinting. People should have to put their fingerprints down to verify their identification, um, and that will give you a stronger background check.
Third, you need to actually do an application for that license and it, and have it have, have, have to have contact with law enforcement. We believe that reduces the ability of straw purchase. If you have to hand out in person that application into a law enforcement agency, state police in this instance, you're much likely that you know, to then say, wait a minute, I better not sell that gun illegally to someone who shouldn't have it.
We think that reduces straw purchasing. And the other piece, and these things go together, but. We need a longer period to do the background check. We need to make sure that state police and, and the National Instant Check system has the time to ensure that people should not have access to firearms. The waiting period ensures a more comprehensive background check.
We don't have that in Virginia right now, so when you put these pieces together, it acts like you need a license to purchase. It's good for five years. Um, it allows law enforcement to ensure that you're, you're safely able to handle a firearm, that you're not prohibited from having a firearm, and it makes sure that people are like making an impulsive purchase that maybe, you know, they want to use it to harm themselves, that it is more difficult to do that. So, it's a, it's an important check that we do not have in Virginia. A lot of people think we have a license in Virginia, we do not, not for license, for purchase. And that's what we're talking about. It's like a permit to purchase. We desperately need that in Virginia.
And you know, the Virginia has done a good job with gun violence prevention, but still about in the middle of the states, states that have act enacted these laws, they're at the top in preventing gun violence and we wanna be there.
WMRA: For the most part, just from the proposed bills I’ve seen, there’s a lot in progress right now to get those safeguards in place. There's only one though that I've noticed so far that's kind of been an outlier in the House that would lower fees charged by local law enforcement for processing concealed handgun permit applications. And I mean, that applies to just that specifically. You know, if that law were to pass, would that complicate any of the others?
Horowitz: No, I don't think we complicate the others. I do think that the, the cost, which it does right now reflects the actual cost for law enforcement to issue that and issue the, the concealed carry permit.
Again, that's different than a purchase permit. This is just to carry a firearm. Um, and they, we do have that in Virginia. Um, we should, I mean, as a, as a taxpayer, the people who want to carry guns in Virginia should pay the cost, and I don't think that, I think right now the costs that we see in Virginia are, uh, in accord with what it costs for state police to process that license. Um, and we, we think that there's no reason to lower that, um, because that means that other taxpayers are subsidizing that. Same thing with firearm purchaser licensing, which we wanna enact. It should be revenue neutral, right?
You don't wanna add things that are unnecessary, but at the same time, it should be the people who are seeking that license, pay the pay the fees for it, right? And so, when you reduce the fees below what state police cost to process. The state's gonna lose money on that. And I don't think that's a way to move forward. I think it should cost what it costs and not more.
WMRA: I’d say they all tie back a public health approach. I'd love to know more about how addressing gun safety legislation that way could possibly make a difference this time around.
Horowitz: Yeah. Well, thanks for asking about a public health. So, approach, of course, school public health, right? So that makes sense that we'd wanna, we'd wanna look at public health, but people throw that term around a lot. Um, and I just wanna give for the listeners just a quick piece about public health, which is, you know, first you have to collect data.
We talk so much about policy without thinking. I mean, people do, oh, we need to do this, we need to do that. We need to collect data, right? That's like number one. And so public health is based on data. And at our center, we produce our own work. We look at our own research. It's always nonpartisan, right?
It's, it's always, we're looking at, at, we're, we're, we're looking at its objective and nonpartisan research. So that's the basis of public health. Um, and then you want to start thinking about looking at that data, where the problem is who's being injured, what are the types of interventions that might work, and then you test those interventions.
And if they work, you want widespread adoption. There's a methodology to that, and so when we, the laws that we're talking about, and especially the laws I'm talking about today, including firearm purchase or licensing, these things have been developed through the public health approach by collecting data, by understanding where the harm is causing by designing interventions that can help with reduce that harm, and then rolling them out.
What we know now is that we have a lot of data about this. We've seen other states develop these types of laws. We collected data about that. In fact, when you look at Connecticut, they enacted, uh, firearm purchaser licensing and their gun death, both homicide and suicide went down, oh, by approximately 30%.
Missouri -- When they got rid of their firearm purchaser licensing law, their homicide went up 30% and their suicide went up 15%. So, when you think about the public health process, you identify the problem, you study it, you design the intervention. This is the intervention that saves lives, firearm, purchaser, licensing, and it's all based on the public health model.
WMRA: Is there anything else, um, that I didn't think to ask that uh, you have on your mind right now while I've got you here?
Horowitz: Uh, look, this is a historic opportunity, um, and, and we should take it. And the one other message we didn't talk about was, is safe storage.
WMRA: Yeah, I'd like to, If, you wouldn't mind.
Horowitz: And we've seen that in Virginia. We've seen tragedies in Virginia where young people have access to their parents' guns. So, we think it's important to be very clear about what safe storage means and what safe storage means is that you, you need. To keep that firearm locked when it's not in use or not on your person.
Let's have a very clean, clear standard. That's number one. Number two, we wanna make sure that we bring what's called a child access prevention law. The law that mandates that you must not let children get access to your guns. All the way up to 18. So, so really up to 17, 18 or under, um, to reduce gun violence.
And that, that provides an opportunity for a, again, for parents and others to say, look, if I have a child in the home that's 17 or under right, they can't have access to my firearms and it's my responsibility. So, bring that child access prevention, uh, up to everybody 17 and below, and then make a very clear requirement, um, that safe storage means locking your firearms.
Let's do that. Those are very popular and we've seen too many tragedies of young people getting guns in Virginia. Let's make it clear that your, that parents have things that they can do and they need to do them.
WMRA: Gotcha. Well, Joshua, thank you so much. This has been very informative and yeah, we will be following all the legislation as it's going through this session. So, thank you so much.
Horowitz: And if you want more information about us yeah, you can Google us at the uh, Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
