Event
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and The Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence invite you to join us for our 2019 Annual Event.
When
Thursday, October 3, 20196:00 PM: Cocktails
7:00 PM: Program
8:00 PM: Dinner Reception
An Evening to Stop Gun Violence
Thursday,
October 3, 2019
NATIONAL MUSEUM
OF WOMEN IN THE ARTS
1250 New York Avenue NW, Washington, DC 20005
We are celebrating the 45th anniversary of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, the oldest gun violence prevention group
The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) and its 501(c)(3) affiliate organization, the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence (Ed Fund), are leading innovators in the gun violence prevention movement. To learn more visit www.csgv.org or www.efsgv.org.
Event
Tickets
Speakers
Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton
Congresswoman Jennifer Wexton has been serving the people of Northern Virginia and Shenandoah Valley for nearly two decades as a prosecutor, advocate for abused children, state Senator, and now a member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Virginia’s 10th District. A native of the Washington area, Jennifer graduated with honors from the University of Maryland in College Park, and earned her law degree in 1995 from the College of William and Mary in Williamsburg, Virginia. She lives in Leesburg with her husband, two sons, and two rescued labrador retrievers.
From 2001 to 2005, Jennifer served as an Assistant Commonwealth’s Attorney for Loudoun County, prosecuting felony and misdemeanor criminal and traffic cases in all of the Loudoun Courts. She successfully prosecuted hundreds of trials, including those of criminals who committed domestic violence, sexual offenses, and murder.
After leaving the prosecutor’s office, Jennifer went into private law practice, but remained committed to public service. She served as a court-appointed guardian ad litem, representing children who had been abused or neglected. She also served as a special justice in mental commitment hearings, and a substitute judge in proceedings in Loudoun County’s district courts.
Jennifer took her passion for protecting others to the state Senate, winning a special election in January 2014. In her five years in Richmond, Jennifer passed more than 40 bills while serving in the minority party. She found bipartisan support for legislation that makes our children safer, combats the heroin and opioid epidemic, increases access to affordable healthcare, prepares our children for jobs of the future, eases traffic congestion, and brings more businesses to Northern Virginia.
Jennifer is a strong advocate for gun violence prevention and has consistently fought for common sense legislation to keep our communities safe while also respecting the rights of responsible gun owners. In the State Senate, she has championed and voted for bills that would establish universal background checks and close the gun show loophole, ban bumpstocks, mandate the reporting of lost and stolen firearms, and keep firearms out of the hands of domestic abusers and those convicted of stalking.
Jennifer comes to Congress with experience in legislating and a deep understanding of Virginia’s 10th district and the issues that matter most to our region’s families. Rep. Wexton looks forward to working across the aisle in Congress to deliver positive results for the people of Northern Virginia and the United States.
Josh Horwitz
Joshua Horwitz, J.D., is the Executive Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence and the Educational Fund to Stop Gun Violence. He has spent three decades working on gun violence prevention issues.
Josh sees his role as looking around the next corner to develop new ideas and strategies for the gun violence prevention movement. For instance, in 2007 his research and advocacy was instrumental in enacting a first-of-its-kind microstamping law in California. This revolutionary technology allows law enforcement to trace guns from expended cartridge casings left at crime scenes.
In 2009, through his book Guns, Democracy and the Insurrectionist Idea, published by the University of Michigan Press, Josh was the first to show how the gun lobby’s “Second Amendment remedies” approach to government was an anti-democratic attack on the rule of law and other democratic institutions that keep the rest of us free.
In 2013, Josh was one of the founders of the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy, a group of mental health and public health experts who have examined the intersection of guns and mental health. The Consortium released a set of policy recommendations designed to promote policy that will more effectively prevent those at a heightened risk of violent behavior from possessing firearms. One of those recommendations was the basis for California’s first in the nation Gun Violence Restraining Order law (AB1014) that passed in September 2014.
Josh is a graduate of the University of Michigan and received his law degree from the George Washington University. He is a visiting scholar at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health where he teaches public health advocacy and is a regular blogger at the Huffington Post.
Honorees
Dr. Amy Barnhorst
Recipient of the Horwitz Public Health Award
Dr. Barnhorst is the Vice Chair for Community Psychiatry in the UC Davis Department of Psychiatry, and Medical Director of a county crisis unit and adjacent a 50-bed inpatient facility. In her clinical work, she provides acute psychiatric care for people with serious mental illness who are in jail, psychiatrically hospitalized or on an involuntary hold in the emergency department.
Dr. Barnhorst’s academic interests include violence and suicide prevention, firearm policy, and community mental health. She got involved in gun violence prevention after the Sandy Hook shooting, when her own children were in second and third grade. After joining the Consortium for Risk-Based Firearm Policy in 2014, she helped contribute to the development and implementation of California’s Gun Violence Restraining Order. With other Consortium researchers, she has presented on expert panels in multiple states to help educate legislators about the evidence behind various firearm-related policies. She has written multiple academic papers on firearms, mental illness and the law. Her writing has also been featured in the New York Times, the Sacramento Bee and on her blog at Psychology Today.
After graduating from Dartmouth College with a degree in environmental and evolutionary biology and earth sciences, she worked teaching outdoor education in Yosemite National Park and led backcountry mountaineering courses for the Colorado Outward Bound School. She then completed medical school and psychiatric residency at UC Davis and joined the faculty soon thereafter. Dr. Barnhorst lives in Sacramento with her husband and two daughters.
Mike Beard
Recipient of the Beard Atwood Award
Mike Beard founded the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence (CSGV) in 1974 and served as president of the organization for several decades. Following his retirement from CSGV, he now serves as President Emeritus and is a member of the Board of Directors.
Before coming to CSGV, Mike was the Executive Director of the Committee for Congressional Reform, Self-Determination for DC and the World Federalist Youth – USA. He has worked for Representative Walter E. Fauntroy (D-DC), Representative Walter Moeller (D-OH), and Senator John F. Kennedy (D-MA).
Mike is a graduate of the American University School of Government and Public Administration and the School of International Service. He resides in the District of Columbia and has two children.
In addition to his work at CSGV, he is currently a member of the Screen Actors Guild and the American Federation of Radio and Television Artists.
Rev. Jim Atwood
Recipient of the Beard Atwood Award
Jim Atwood was the Pastor of the Wallace Presbyterian Church, Wallace, North Carolina for five years before he and his wife, Roxana, went to Japan as missionaries with the United Church of Christ. After nine years, they returned to the States where Jim was called to be the Pastor of Grace Presbyterian Church of Springfield, Virginia. In 1984, he became Pastor of Trinity Presbyterian in Arlington from which he retired in 1999. He was moved to join the CSGV board after a charter member of Grace Church was shot and killed by a robber with a Saturday Night Special. He is also a member of the National Committee of the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship and Heeding God’s Call of Greater Washington.