Sen. Edgar Flores, D-Las Vegas, presented Senate Bill 156 to create an Office for the Prevention of Gun Violence, or OPGV, to sit within the attorney general's office and to compile research, coordinate prevention grants, assist local initiatives, and maintain a resource bank for gun-violence prevention.

Flores said the office would be advisory and research-focused: "This office will not have the power to create legislation. They're gonna compile data and they're gonna give it back to us and we do with it whatever we want," Flores told the committee.

Students and survivors of the December 6, 2023 UNLV shooting made up a large portion of the in-person testimony. Alastair Dias, a UNLV student who witnessed the December attack, told the committee, "Gun violence is not a partisan issue, and it never should be." Madeline Krieger, who co-presented with Flores, described the bill's structure and emphasized it would be housed in the attorney general's office with an ombudsman rather than a director to reduce fiscal impact.

Supporters argued the office would build a centralized evidence base and fund community-driven prevention work. Madeline Krieger said it would allow "research and public awareness efforts" and cited Colorado's 2021 OPGV creation and $450,000 in allocations as an example. Several student leaders and campus organizations said the office would support campus safety, victim services and community-based programming. The Nevada Coalition to End Domestic and Sexual Violence and the American Academy of Pediatrics' Nevada chapter also voiced support on public-health and domestic-violence grounds; the latter pointed to firearms as the leading cause of death for U.S. children and teens.

Opponents included the National Rifle Association and Nevada Firearms Coalition. Keeley Hopkins, state director for the NRA, told the committee she feared the office would become "a taxpayer funded office that is used to push anti-gun policies and initiatives," and urged opposition. Other opponents, including firearms instructors and veterans, said the state should instead focus on enforcing existing laws and expanding gun-safety training.

Committee exchanges focused on three procedural points: (1) why the attorney general's office should house the OPGV rather than the governor's office (Flores answered that the AG's office intersects with law enforcement and litigation and that other states have placed similar offices there); (2) data disaggregation by race, ethnicity and geography to identify disparities; and (3) funding sources and safeguards to prevent politicization. Flores and supporters emphasized private grants and philanthropy could seed the office to avoid an immediate fiscal note while the office builds evidence to justify later public funds.

The hearing included robust oral and remote testimony from students, nonprofit leaders, clinicians and gun-rights groups. The committee closed the hearing without taking a vote.