On this episode of the Karol Markowicz Show, Karol sits down with Amy Swearer, one of America’s leading voices on the Second Amendment, criminal justice reform, and mental health policy. Amy shares her journey from wanting to become a police officer to becoming a legal and policy expert shaping national conversations on gun rights, overcriminalization, and constitutional law.
They dive into the realities of gun violence, the role mental health plays in public policy, the future of Supreme Court battles over assault weapons bans, and why facts—not feelings—must guide policy decisions. Amy also opens up about marriage, ambition, and her philosophy on “strategic topography” — choosing the right hills to die on in life and politics.
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Speaker 1 (00:06):
And welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Amy Swearer. Amy is a senior
legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, where she is a
leading national expert on a wide range of public policy,
legal and constitutional issues, including the Second Amendment, criminal justice
and mental health policy.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So nice to have you on, Amy.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So I first came across your work.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It was during an event that we did together about
the Second Amendment back when you were at Heritage. And
you absolutely blew me away. I think I followed you
like during that event.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I was like, who is this woman?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I need to know more about her. I saw you
looking at your phone.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
All right. Yes, fair.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You were just incredible. I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
No, no, of course. But you were really fantastic. I
thought you were so... matter of fact and brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I mean, but the way that you conveyed really complicated
ideas in a much more simpler manner, I was incredibly
impressed by you. How did you get into the topics
that you specialize in? Like, where did you become a
Second Amendment expert? Like, how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, I mean, like my entire career, largely by accident.
So I stumbled into this role. I not realizing that
this was something people could get paid to do. You know,
so I, believe it or not, I actually started out,
I wanted to be a cop, right? I wanted a
badge and a gun and to curb stomp bad guys.
(01:39):
I can see that. Right. The FBI at the time
was in a hiring freeze. They were like, get a
law degree. My parents were like, get a law degree.
My professors were like, get a law degree. I'm like, okay,
I guess I'll get a law degree. I wanted to
be a prosecutor, ended up clerking at a public defender's office.
There was a brief moment where I was doing international
(01:59):
space law moot courts. And I truly thought like I
was going to be practicing criminal law in the Midwest.
And Just happenstance and a lot of closed doors, closed windows.
You know, I stumbled my way into a posting for,
it was a visiting legal fellowship in over-criminalization at the
(02:21):
Heritage Foundation. And I remember reading that job posting being like,
you're going to pay me to do that? Like, you
mean my job is going to be explaining to people
that there are some laws, um, that are bad and, um,
unproductive and, you know, are putting people in prison for
reasons that are absurd and we shouldn't follow those policies.
(02:43):
And also many of them are unconstitutional, sold, right?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Like, are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Um, Because when people say they work in public policy,
it's a lot of times like when people say, oh,
I work on the Hill. It's this nebulous catch all
for some day. It could be anything. And I didn't
realize that. Oh, my goodness. You know, I actually laugh
because sometimes people still do that. Like, what does that mean? Right.
(03:10):
Like you're you're a policy expert. You're a legal fellow.
And I joke that my mom got the last laugh.
So my my mom is a teacher and she always
told me, Amy, you're going to be a teacher. I said,
I'm never going to I'm going to be a cop. Right.
I'm going to be I'm not going to be a teacher.
But she she won out here. I mean, essentially, if
(03:33):
if I do explain what I do, I'm a teacher.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I teach people how good governance should work. Right. I mean,
most people, they don't have, they don't get paid to
sit around all day and think about from a conservative
mindset and conservative framework, what does good policy look like?
What are the, to become an expert in the facts
of violence, of gun laws, of, you know, crime victimization,
(03:59):
much less with a legal component, right? Well, I do.
You know, my job is to be an expert and
then to convey that, to break it down, for students
and who that student is changes. I want the government
to listen. How to do their job better, right? What
(04:20):
good governance should look like and to rely on me
as a resource. But sometimes it's writing op-eds, right? It's
breaking it down for your average, ordinary person of ordinary intelligence.
What does this mean? Like we're arguing about guns. What
the heck is a bump stock? What is an assault weapon?
(04:41):
What does that mean? What does that not mean? Why
does anyone want an AR-15? You know, and sometimes it's
longer law reviews, right? It's things that you want courts
to rely on. So my student changes, but my mom wins.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I'm a teacher.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Mom's always right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And you are because you're having to explain this you know,
on a number of different levels to all kinds of people.
I love the idea that your audience changes, that your
students change.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But what made you get into mental health policy? What's
the angle there?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, so part of it is I, again, just the
weird confluence of events with what my background was. When
I clerked at a public defender's office during law school,
we actually helped run the mental health docket. So that's
for essentially people who the state is alleging you are
(05:32):
mentally ill and a danger to yourself. So you either
need to be civilly committed or we need to have
some sort of involuntary oversight of your mental health. And
so I learned a lot about mental health policy at
the time. Never really thought it would come back to
me in my career. But actually what ended up happening
(05:55):
was was while I was working on over-criminalization, I started
working on Second Amendment issues through the lens of over-criminalization.
So this was right around the time, like 2017, if
you remember, there were a number of really major mass shootings, right?
Like South Springs was that year. I think that the
Las Vegas Music Festival shooting was that year. And we didn't,
(06:18):
I was at Heritage at the time, we didn't really
have anyone, believe it or not, who full-time was working
on Second Amendment issues. And so we needed someone to respond.
You know, I had a personal interest in guns and
I'd been writing a paper in the background on Second
Amendment issues from an over-criminalization perspective. This idea of like,
why can't Martha Stewart own a gun? Right. She's objectively
(06:41):
less of a danger to the public safety than I am.
And that's not because I'm a danger to the public.
It's because it's Martha Stewart. Right. So we're people in
ways that don't make sense. Yeah. So we're responding to that.
some of the gun policy issues from the perspective of, well,
why would we criminalize possession of just a commonly owned
gun that is no different from any other type of,
(07:03):
you know, non-assault weapon gun to make felons of a
bunch of people? And when you look at the facts
and the reality, you know, With mass shootings, most of
these people are not prohibited persons. They can use guns
to kill a lot of people. And your more basic,
you know, ordinary run-of-the-mill crimes are generally people who are
already banned from owning anything. Like, what are we doing? Absolutely, yeah.
(07:27):
So it was from an Overcome perspective that I got
into Second Amendment issues, which the more you get into
Second Amendment and gun policy issues and violence and crime
and mass shootings, there's such an overlap with... mental health issues.
And so it actually like sort of came back full
circle because I don't think you can fairly talk about
(07:51):
gun issues and gun violence and gun deaths without that
mental health component. Not when a half to two thirds
of gun deaths every year are suicides. Right. You have
to be able to talk about that. And so, you know,
it all just, you know, Just again, the Lord works
in mysterious ways. The things that I never thought could
(08:11):
possibly matter to what I wanted to do in my career.
It is now, in large part, my career.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
What would you have done if you weren't doing this?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think I would have been a cop. I still
joke that I'd have a hard time if DHS showed
up and they were like, Amy, we need you to
do undercover work.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Really?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah. I think it'd be great. I have a hard time.
You know, I'm married now, so there's another component to this.
I'm like, ooh, I got to run that by some
other people.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
But curb stomping criminals you feel like you'd be in for?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, I think I would. I think in another life,
if I weren't averse to blood in the way that
I am, I might have been a doctor. But I
don't know. I really think And, you know, I could
ride my hobby horse about the professionalization of the police
force all day because I do think it's sad that
I did get a lot of comments at the time. Like,
(09:10):
you know, you're a chancellor scholar, like you can do
better than being a cop. Which I think is a whole,
you know, framing issue in and of itself that we
don't view policing as this professional thing where it's like
you can do better. I'm like, shouldn't we want a
police force? You know, so that's a whole different thing.
(09:31):
But I really think in another life, you know, I
was Detective Amy. I could so see that.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Do you have an area of study that you haven't
gotten into, but you could see yourself pursuing?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Oh, man. You know, it's... It's almost because any of
the issues that I do study are issues that I
never would have thought. I mean, I could have made
a career out over that. I would be doing full time,
whether it's crime, violence, guns, whatever. you know, my other
full-time job is, is birthright citizenship issues. So I choose
(10:10):
non-controversial topics. Everybody gets along and.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
We all just want everyone to agree with you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
No one is ever mad at my opinions, you know, my,
my scholastic conclusions. Um, but yeah, I, you know, I,
I'll be honest. I, the things that interest me are
really the things that, that touch on, um, I don't
know how to say it, humanity, right? Like this deeper
(10:40):
meaning of what it means to live as a human,
to be an American, right? To live in community with
people and the way that that gets broken. You know,
so maybe in another life I was a sociologist. Like,
I don't know, right? But I love the human factor.
And that's not to say like, like there's a human
(11:02):
side to things like economics and the data and the
stats and, you know, you know, sort of like the,
you talk to anybody who does like administrative law and
they'll tell you, you don't understand how much of your
life is actually dictated by, by things like, you know,
that seem boring, like, like tax law or administrative law.
So I don't know. I suppose there's a side of
(11:22):
me that is, could be interested in any of those
things in, in the sense of like, what is, what
is the component? How are we, how is this facilitating
human flourishing? Or how is this undermining human flourishing in
the way that we do it? So I know that's
a bit of a cop-out.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Anything's possible.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
It's a bit of a cop-out. I know it doesn't
answer your question, but so much of public policy, because
of that human aspect, I do find interesting. It just
happens that... you know, the role that I've taken on
has been in the Second Amendment in crime and violence
(12:04):
and citizenship. But I find it all fascinating.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Do you get a lot of hate?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You kind of joked about that, but it's funny, you know,
obviously everybody in the public eye is susceptible to hate.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And comments and anger. But you just strike me as, again,
to call you again, matter of fact, I just don't
see you as a, a highly emotional arguer. You are
very like, This is how it is. This is what
the facts are. This is the result of these facts.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It's hard to be, I just have a hard time
picturing people, you know, you spiking their anger meter where
they lash out at you because it's so.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Just, I don't want to say clinical, but in a
way it is.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Have you been on the internet recently? I have.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I just, I guess I see you as above that.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Look, personally, I don't, particularly like to engage in arguments
like that. It happens. You know, it's it's not unique
to the gun space, certainly, but it does come out
a lot. I found that the gun policy space, it's
easy to make everyone mad because it's I think for
(13:22):
so long, much of the public facing argumentation around it
has been reduced to like bumper sticker slogans, because that sells, right? Right.
You know, like ban all AR-15s, you know, the accusation of, well,
you just care about kids more than, or you care
about guns more than your kids.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Sure, you want people to die, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Which is insane. You know, I've been doing this for
almost a decade. I have yet to meet a single
person on any side of this who's like, yay, mass shootings, like, yay,
we need more dead kids. No. No. No, absolutely not.
You know, and equally unhelpful on the other side where it's,
you know, I'm immediately going to make someone mad listening
(14:03):
to this, right? But the thing of like, you know,
all gun laws are unconstitutional, right? I'm like, you don't believe,
you don't actually think that, you know, the Boston bomber
has a God-given right to an AK-47 in prison. That's
a gun law, right? So I'm glad we agree that
there are some gun laws. It's like, you know, we
agree that that guy shouldn't have a gun. It's a
matter of what that looks like and the philosophy behind it. And,
(14:27):
you know, is this actually constitutional? So it's really easy
to make people upset. And I think doubly so because,
as I'm sure, you know, you are aware as you've,
you know, as I know you've talked about, like you've
more recently gotten into the gun space in your personal
life as a gun owner, right? Yeah. There are a
(14:48):
lot of Americans and increasingly so who just don't understand
basics about firearms.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know, and people who, you know, like I still
in my personal life, all of conversations with people I've
known a long time where I'm like, you're in the military. Right.
And we're having to stop and be like, hold on.
What do you mean when you say assault weapon? I'm
trying to back that up to be like, it's not
a machine gun, right? It's not a fully automatic firearm.
We are talking about the same semi-automatic firearm, but with
(15:19):
a pistol grip or a barrel shot. And what does
that mean? And so there's just this wide gulf between
people who know a lot about guns, who grew up
with them, and people who just really don't have basic understandings.
And I think it makes it easier a lot of
times to for those conversations than to default into, well,
this is really easy. You just hate kids and want
(15:40):
them to die. Or, you know, this is really easy.
You just, you hate the idea, like you want tyranny
to win today. It's just, it's, I have found it
particularly difficult in the Second Amendment space. And I think
oddly enough, it's because the emotions get involved. It's because
of the stakes, right? We all actually agree crime is bad.
(16:05):
School shootings.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I lived in Parksville, Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I don't think I can get them to agree crime
is bad.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, okay. Fair point. Fair point. Maybe there are some
spaces where we are not having that fight. Like, you know,
violence is a social construct. Exactly. Like someone who's never
been punched in the face for real. Right. You know,
so it happens. You know, it People get very emotional
(16:33):
in this space. And I will say this. I say
this to my interns all the time. I think the
wrong reaction to the underlying emotion is to just dismiss it,
especially when you're talking with people for whom, as is
often the case with gun violence, this is deeply personal.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Many, many people have had some interaction with, whether it's
mass shootings, school shootings, suicide. Mm-hmm. that's deeply personal to them.
And I don't think the answer is to dismiss that. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Um, but it's not, this is why I can't imagine
you getting hate.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
This is why, you know, like facts, it is objectively true.
Facts exist outside of our feelings, but in the policy space,
we're dealing with people and people have feelings that they
care very deeply about. Um, And if you are just
dismissing people and their emotions and not meeting them where
(17:34):
they're at, the whole goal of public policy is to
change minds. It's to convince them to have those conversations.
And you can't, when you're dealing with humans, take the
humanity out of those conversations. So there's a line, I think.
You're so awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I love this. This is like, what a great answer, because.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You know, the idea that you get hate for facts
that you produce and you still care about engaging with
those people.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Just I'm a fan, Amy. We're going to take a
quick break and be right back on The Carol Markowitz Show.
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I thought pretty hard about like, how do I phrase
what I feel as that answer? And I'll put it
this way. I think right now at 33, I am
most proud of the fact that I truly think if
I met younger and older versions of myself, that they'd
(18:38):
be pretty stoked about where I'm at. I think if you,
if Amy right now met Amy at 16, 17 and
was like, hey, this is where we're at at 33, 16,
17 year old Amy would be stoked. She'd be like,
we're testifying in front of Congress. Like our two truths
and a lie are stellar. We're married. Like we found
(19:01):
the love of our life. The love of our life
loves us back. This is amazing. Right. And I think
same thing. If I were to meet my future self,
if 20, 30 years from now, I truly think that
that version of me would, would probably look back and say,
You know, girl, you hit your stride in your 30s.
Like you really came into your own in a way
(19:24):
that you never could have imagined. And we had one
hell of a Jesus year. I'll tell you what, didn't we?
And I think both older and younger versions of myself
are looking at this one. That's that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
What a great answer. I haven't gotten that before at all.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I feel like a lot of the answers, you know,
people have the same things that they're proud of in
their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And this was really something unique. Give us a five-year-out prediction,
and it could be about anything at all.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
My cheat answer is there's nothing new under the sun.
We'll be arguing about the same things. From a Second
Amendment perspective, you know, I think in five years, you
will see a Supreme Court that will have been forced
to take on some of the bigger questions in the
gun policy space, things like assault weapons bans, magazine capacity bans.
(20:15):
And I think in a weird way— assuming the Supreme
Court doesn't change from its current makeup, it'll strike those down.
And I think it will actually cause a revolution in
how we talk about gun policy, because so much of
gun policy right now is focused on these longstanding, like
(20:36):
very blanket issues, where from my perspective, I'd look at,
you know, something like a assault weapons ban. I'd be like,
that's useless, but that's all we fight about. And once
those are gone, I think it's going to actually force
the conversation to change about, OK, Now that we know
we can't ban these anymore because that was a dominant
unconstitutional idea, what does it look like to save lives?
(20:57):
What does it look like to be a responsible gun owner?
What does it look like for there to be some
government oversight and intervention, but that isn't in a blanket,
generally applicable way for like Martha Stewart?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah. I love that Martha is also your, you know,
the one.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
It is. This is a big thing in the overcrime
and Second Amendment world because it's it's Martha Stewart. You know,
unless the government, the federal government changes how it does
restoration of rights, she's never going to get her gun
rights back unless Trump pardons her. And that's an insane thing. Right.
You know, part of a much bigger conversation. But it's
(21:34):
it's for a reason. Martha Stewart comes up for a reason.
And it's not just because she's tamed Snoop Dogg. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
But she has actually tamed Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Amy, I have loved this conversation. I really love getting
to know you a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
All right. So I'm really mad at Randy Barnett right
now because he actually gave on your show, what I
thought was the most profound answer I've ever heard, which
to re-up that was live your life like you're going
to write a memoir. And so I think I'm going
to give two pieces of advice. One's very quick. So, yes,
(22:18):
I'm cheating again. But that I think play into that,
that it's a way to think about how to write
your memoir, you know, how to live your life in
that way. So the first, marry well. Marry well. Marriage
is an amazing thing. Ten out of ten recommend when
you have the right partner, the way that it transforms
(22:39):
you as an individual and it just enriches your life.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Amazing. marry well and you'll write a better memoir um
and the second become an expert at strategic topography all
right let me explain let me explain life is about
knowing hills it's about knowing which hills are worth fighting
on which hills are worth dying on and just as
important knowing which hills are not important at all and
(23:06):
you can let other people die on those because it's
what are we doing um And I think a lot
of times people spend so much time not understanding that
or not thinking about it in advance. And so they
learn the hard way, like, man, I think I should
have died on that hill. Right. I think maybe that's
the hill I should have died on. Or maybe, you know,
that was a hill I didn't need to die on.
(23:28):
And I think this is true both in your personal
capacity and your personal life. I think this is true
in your professional life. It's certainly true in public policy,
in a moral, spiritual sense. And I think the better
you can get early on it, it's thinking through and
recognizing and knowing for yourself what that means. You know,
(23:50):
what what hills do you know you have to look
like and and what hills you're like, y'all can have
fun fighting over that. I don't live in pizza over
in my valley. I think it's really going to thinking
about life like a memoir. You don't want to be
writing a memoir about how you died on all the
(24:10):
wrong hills. Yeah. How you've wasted all of your political
and social capital for things that didn't matter. So become
an expert. Marry well. Become an expert in strategic topography.
Love it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Choose the hills to die on wisely. She is Amy Swear.
Thank you so much for coming on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Thanks, Carol.
And welcome back to the Carol Markowitz Show on iHeartRadio.
My guest today is Amy Swearer. Amy is a senior
legal fellow at Advancing American Freedom, where she is a
leading national expert on a wide range of public policy,
legal and constitutional issues, including the Second Amendment, criminal justice
and mental health policy.
Speaker 2 (00:26):
So nice to have you on, Amy.
Speaker 3 (00:28):
Thank you so much for having me.
Speaker 2 (00:29):
So I first came across your work.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
It was during an event that we did together about
the Second Amendment back when you were at Heritage. And
you absolutely blew me away. I think I followed you
like during that event.
Speaker 2 (00:43):
I was like, who is this woman?
Speaker 3 (00:45):
I need to know more about her. I saw you
looking at your phone.
Speaker 2 (00:48):
All right. Yes, fair.
Speaker 3 (00:52):
You were just incredible. I'm kidding.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
No, no, of course. But you were really fantastic. I
thought you were so... matter of fact and brilliant.
Speaker 1 (01:01):
I mean, but the way that you conveyed really complicated
ideas in a much more simpler manner, I was incredibly
impressed by you. How did you get into the topics
that you specialize in? Like, where did you become a
Second Amendment expert? Like, how did that happen?
Speaker 3 (01:17):
Yeah, I mean, like my entire career, largely by accident.
So I stumbled into this role. I not realizing that
this was something people could get paid to do. You know,
so I, believe it or not, I actually started out,
I wanted to be a cop, right? I wanted a
badge and a gun and to curb stomp bad guys.
(01:39):
I can see that. Right. The FBI at the time
was in a hiring freeze. They were like, get a
law degree. My parents were like, get a law degree.
My professors were like, get a law degree. I'm like, okay,
I guess I'll get a law degree. I wanted to
be a prosecutor, ended up clerking at a public defender's office.
There was a brief moment where I was doing international
(01:59):
space law moot courts. And I truly thought like I
was going to be practicing criminal law in the Midwest.
And Just happenstance and a lot of closed doors, closed windows.
You know, I stumbled my way into a posting for,
it was a visiting legal fellowship in over-criminalization at the
(02:21):
Heritage Foundation. And I remember reading that job posting being like,
you're going to pay me to do that? Like, you
mean my job is going to be explaining to people
that there are some laws, um, that are bad and, um,
unproductive and, you know, are putting people in prison for
reasons that are absurd and we shouldn't follow those policies.
(02:43):
And also many of them are unconstitutional, sold, right?
Speaker 2 (02:47):
Like, are you kidding?
Speaker 3 (02:48):
Um, Because when people say they work in public policy,
it's a lot of times like when people say, oh,
I work on the Hill. It's this nebulous catch all
for some day. It could be anything. And I didn't
realize that. Oh, my goodness. You know, I actually laugh
because sometimes people still do that. Like, what does that mean? Right.
(03:10):
Like you're you're a policy expert. You're a legal fellow.
And I joke that my mom got the last laugh.
So my my mom is a teacher and she always
told me, Amy, you're going to be a teacher. I said,
I'm never going to I'm going to be a cop. Right.
I'm going to be I'm not going to be a teacher.
But she she won out here. I mean, essentially, if
(03:33):
if I do explain what I do, I'm a teacher.
Speaker 1 (03:35):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (03:35):
I teach people how good governance should work. Right. I mean,
most people, they don't have, they don't get paid to
sit around all day and think about from a conservative
mindset and conservative framework, what does good policy look like?
What are the, to become an expert in the facts
of violence, of gun laws, of, you know, crime victimization,
(03:59):
much less with a legal component, right? Well, I do.
You know, my job is to be an expert and
then to convey that, to break it down, for students
and who that student is changes. I want the government
to listen. How to do their job better, right? What
(04:20):
good governance should look like and to rely on me
as a resource. But sometimes it's writing op-eds, right? It's
breaking it down for your average, ordinary person of ordinary intelligence.
What does this mean? Like we're arguing about guns. What
the heck is a bump stock? What is an assault weapon?
(04:41):
What does that mean? What does that not mean? Why
does anyone want an AR-15? You know, and sometimes it's
longer law reviews, right? It's things that you want courts
to rely on. So my student changes, but my mom wins.
Speaker 2 (04:53):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:53):
I'm a teacher.
Speaker 2 (04:54):
Mom's always right.
Speaker 3 (04:56):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (04:56):
That's amazing.
Speaker 1 (04:57):
And you are because you're having to explain this you know,
on a number of different levels to all kinds of people.
I love the idea that your audience changes, that your
students change.
Speaker 2 (05:06):
But what made you get into mental health policy? What's
the angle there?
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Yeah, so part of it is I, again, just the
weird confluence of events with what my background was. When
I clerked at a public defender's office during law school,
we actually helped run the mental health docket. So that's
for essentially people who the state is alleging you are
(05:32):
mentally ill and a danger to yourself. So you either
need to be civilly committed or we need to have
some sort of involuntary oversight of your mental health. And
so I learned a lot about mental health policy at
the time. Never really thought it would come back to
me in my career. But actually what ended up happening
(05:55):
was was while I was working on over-criminalization, I started
working on Second Amendment issues through the lens of over-criminalization.
So this was right around the time, like 2017, if
you remember, there were a number of really major mass shootings, right?
Like South Springs was that year. I think that the
Las Vegas Music Festival shooting was that year. And we didn't,
(06:18):
I was at Heritage at the time, we didn't really
have anyone, believe it or not, who full-time was working
on Second Amendment issues. And so we needed someone to respond.
You know, I had a personal interest in guns and
I'd been writing a paper in the background on Second
Amendment issues from an over-criminalization perspective. This idea of like,
why can't Martha Stewart own a gun? Right. She's objectively
(06:41):
less of a danger to the public safety than I am.
And that's not because I'm a danger to the public.
It's because it's Martha Stewart. Right. So we're people in
ways that don't make sense. Yeah. So we're responding to that.
some of the gun policy issues from the perspective of, well,
why would we criminalize possession of just a commonly owned
gun that is no different from any other type of,
(07:03):
you know, non-assault weapon gun to make felons of a
bunch of people? And when you look at the facts
and the reality, you know, With mass shootings, most of
these people are not prohibited persons. They can use guns
to kill a lot of people. And your more basic,
you know, ordinary run-of-the-mill crimes are generally people who are
already banned from owning anything. Like, what are we doing? Absolutely, yeah.
(07:27):
So it was from an Overcome perspective that I got
into Second Amendment issues, which the more you get into
Second Amendment and gun policy issues and violence and crime
and mass shootings, there's such an overlap with... mental health issues.
And so it actually like sort of came back full
circle because I don't think you can fairly talk about
(07:51):
gun issues and gun violence and gun deaths without that
mental health component. Not when a half to two thirds
of gun deaths every year are suicides. Right. You have
to be able to talk about that. And so, you know,
it all just, you know, Just again, the Lord works
in mysterious ways. The things that I never thought could
(08:11):
possibly matter to what I wanted to do in my career.
It is now, in large part, my career.
Speaker 2 (08:18):
What would you have done if you weren't doing this?
Speaker 3 (08:22):
I think I would have been a cop. I still
joke that I'd have a hard time if DHS showed
up and they were like, Amy, we need you to
do undercover work.
Speaker 1 (08:33):
Really?
Speaker 3 (08:33):
Yeah. I think it'd be great. I have a hard time.
You know, I'm married now, so there's another component to this.
I'm like, ooh, I got to run that by some
other people.
Speaker 1 (08:44):
But curb stomping criminals you feel like you'd be in for?
Speaker 3 (08:49):
Yeah, I think I would. I think in another life,
if I weren't averse to blood in the way that
I am, I might have been a doctor. But I
don't know. I really think And, you know, I could
ride my hobby horse about the professionalization of the police
force all day because I do think it's sad that
I did get a lot of comments at the time. Like,
(09:10):
you know, you're a chancellor scholar, like you can do
better than being a cop. Which I think is a whole,
you know, framing issue in and of itself that we
don't view policing as this professional thing where it's like
you can do better. I'm like, shouldn't we want a
police force? You know, so that's a whole different thing.
(09:31):
But I really think in another life, you know, I
was Detective Amy. I could so see that.
Speaker 2 (09:39):
Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1 (09:41):
Do you have an area of study that you haven't
gotten into, but you could see yourself pursuing?
Speaker 3 (09:48):
Oh, man. You know, it's... It's almost because any of
the issues that I do study are issues that I
never would have thought. I mean, I could have made
a career out over that. I would be doing full time,
whether it's crime, violence, guns, whatever. you know, my other
full-time job is, is birthright citizenship issues. So I choose
(10:10):
non-controversial topics. Everybody gets along and.
Speaker 2 (10:15):
We all just want everyone to agree with you. Yeah.
Speaker 3 (10:17):
No one is ever mad at my opinions, you know, my,
my scholastic conclusions. Um, but yeah, I, you know, I,
I'll be honest. I, the things that interest me are
really the things that, that touch on, um, I don't
know how to say it, humanity, right? Like this deeper
(10:40):
meaning of what it means to live as a human,
to be an American, right? To live in community with
people and the way that that gets broken. You know,
so maybe in another life I was a sociologist. Like,
I don't know, right? But I love the human factor.
And that's not to say like, like there's a human
(11:02):
side to things like economics and the data and the
stats and, you know, you know, sort of like the,
you talk to anybody who does like administrative law and
they'll tell you, you don't understand how much of your
life is actually dictated by, by things like, you know,
that seem boring, like, like tax law or administrative law.
So I don't know. I suppose there's a side of
(11:22):
me that is, could be interested in any of those
things in, in the sense of like, what is, what
is the component? How are we, how is this facilitating
human flourishing? Or how is this undermining human flourishing in
the way that we do it? So I know that's
a bit of a cop-out.
Speaker 2 (11:42):
Anything's possible.
Speaker 3 (11:44):
It's a bit of a cop-out. I know it doesn't
answer your question, but so much of public policy, because
of that human aspect, I do find interesting. It just
happens that... you know, the role that I've taken on
has been in the Second Amendment in crime and violence
(12:04):
and citizenship. But I find it all fascinating.
Speaker 2 (12:10):
Do you get a lot of hate?
Speaker 1 (12:11):
You kind of joked about that, but it's funny, you know,
obviously everybody in the public eye is susceptible to hate.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
And comments and anger. But you just strike me as, again,
to call you again, matter of fact, I just don't
see you as a, a highly emotional arguer. You are
very like, This is how it is. This is what
the facts are. This is the result of these facts.
Speaker 1 (12:36):
It's hard to be, I just have a hard time
picturing people, you know, you spiking their anger meter where
they lash out at you because it's so.
Speaker 2 (12:46):
Just, I don't want to say clinical, but in a
way it is.
Speaker 3 (12:50):
Have you been on the internet recently? I have.
Speaker 2 (12:54):
I just, I guess I see you as above that.
Speaker 3 (12:58):
Look, personally, I don't, particularly like to engage in arguments
like that. It happens. You know, it's it's not unique
to the gun space, certainly, but it does come out
a lot. I found that the gun policy space, it's
easy to make everyone mad because it's I think for
(13:22):
so long, much of the public facing argumentation around it
has been reduced to like bumper sticker slogans, because that sells, right? Right.
You know, like ban all AR-15s, you know, the accusation of, well,
you just care about kids more than, or you care
about guns more than your kids.
Speaker 1 (13:39):
Sure, you want people to die, yeah.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Which is insane. You know, I've been doing this for
almost a decade. I have yet to meet a single
person on any side of this who's like, yay, mass shootings, like, yay,
we need more dead kids. No. No. No, absolutely not.
You know, and equally unhelpful on the other side where it's,
you know, I'm immediately going to make someone mad listening
(14:03):
to this, right? But the thing of like, you know,
all gun laws are unconstitutional, right? I'm like, you don't believe,
you don't actually think that, you know, the Boston bomber
has a God-given right to an AK-47 in prison. That's
a gun law, right? So I'm glad we agree that
there are some gun laws. It's like, you know, we
agree that that guy shouldn't have a gun. It's a
matter of what that looks like and the philosophy behind it. And,
(14:27):
you know, is this actually constitutional? So it's really easy
to make people upset. And I think doubly so because,
as I'm sure, you know, you are aware as you've,
you know, as I know you've talked about, like you've
more recently gotten into the gun space in your personal
life as a gun owner, right? Yeah. There are a
(14:48):
lot of Americans and increasingly so who just don't understand
basics about firearms.
Speaker 1 (14:55):
Right.
Speaker 3 (14:56):
You know, and people who, you know, like I still
in my personal life, all of conversations with people I've
known a long time where I'm like, you're in the military. Right.
And we're having to stop and be like, hold on.
What do you mean when you say assault weapon? I'm
trying to back that up to be like, it's not
a machine gun, right? It's not a fully automatic firearm.
We are talking about the same semi-automatic firearm, but with
(15:19):
a pistol grip or a barrel shot. And what does
that mean? And so there's just this wide gulf between
people who know a lot about guns, who grew up
with them, and people who just really don't have basic understandings.
And I think it makes it easier a lot of
times to for those conversations than to default into, well,
this is really easy. You just hate kids and want
(15:40):
them to die. Or, you know, this is really easy.
You just, you hate the idea, like you want tyranny
to win today. It's just, it's, I have found it
particularly difficult in the Second Amendment space. And I think
oddly enough, it's because the emotions get involved. It's because
of the stakes, right? We all actually agree crime is bad.
(16:05):
School shootings.
Speaker 2 (16:06):
I don't know.
Speaker 3 (16:07):
I lived in Parksville, Brooklyn.
Speaker 2 (16:09):
I don't think I can get them to agree crime
is bad.
Speaker 3 (16:12):
Well, okay. Fair point. Fair point. Maybe there are some
spaces where we are not having that fight. Like, you know,
violence is a social construct. Exactly. Like someone who's never
been punched in the face for real. Right. You know,
so it happens. You know, it People get very emotional
(16:33):
in this space. And I will say this. I say
this to my interns all the time. I think the
wrong reaction to the underlying emotion is to just dismiss it,
especially when you're talking with people for whom, as is
often the case with gun violence, this is deeply personal.
Speaker 1 (16:50):
Right.
Speaker 3 (16:51):
Many, many people have had some interaction with, whether it's
mass shootings, school shootings, suicide. Mm-hmm. that's deeply personal to them.
And I don't think the answer is to dismiss that. Right.
Speaker 2 (17:09):
Um, but it's not, this is why I can't imagine
you getting hate.
Speaker 3 (17:13):
This is why, you know, like facts, it is objectively true.
Facts exist outside of our feelings, but in the policy space,
we're dealing with people and people have feelings that they
care very deeply about. Um, And if you are just
dismissing people and their emotions and not meeting them where
(17:34):
they're at, the whole goal of public policy is to
change minds. It's to convince them to have those conversations.
And you can't, when you're dealing with humans, take the
humanity out of those conversations. So there's a line, I think.
You're so awesome.
Speaker 2 (17:52):
I love this. This is like, what a great answer, because.
Speaker 1 (17:56):
You know, the idea that you get hate for facts
that you produce and you still care about engaging with
those people.
Speaker 2 (18:05):
Just I'm a fan, Amy. We're going to take a
quick break and be right back on The Carol Markowitz Show.
What are you most proud of in your life?
Speaker 3 (18:17):
I thought pretty hard about like, how do I phrase
what I feel as that answer? And I'll put it
this way. I think right now at 33, I am
most proud of the fact that I truly think if
I met younger and older versions of myself, that they'd
(18:38):
be pretty stoked about where I'm at. I think if you,
if Amy right now met Amy at 16, 17 and
was like, hey, this is where we're at at 33, 16,
17 year old Amy would be stoked. She'd be like,
we're testifying in front of Congress. Like our two truths
and a lie are stellar. We're married. Like we found
(19:01):
the love of our life. The love of our life
loves us back. This is amazing. Right. And I think
same thing. If I were to meet my future self,
if 20, 30 years from now, I truly think that
that version of me would, would probably look back and say,
You know, girl, you hit your stride in your 30s.
Like you really came into your own in a way
(19:24):
that you never could have imagined. And we had one
hell of a Jesus year. I'll tell you what, didn't we?
And I think both older and younger versions of myself
are looking at this one. That's that's pretty awesome.
Speaker 2 (19:39):
What a great answer. I haven't gotten that before at all.
Speaker 1 (19:43):
I feel like a lot of the answers, you know,
people have the same things that they're proud of in
their lives.
Speaker 2 (19:48):
And this was really something unique. Give us a five-year-out prediction,
and it could be about anything at all.
Speaker 3 (19:55):
My cheat answer is there's nothing new under the sun.
We'll be arguing about the same things. From a Second
Amendment perspective, you know, I think in five years, you
will see a Supreme Court that will have been forced
to take on some of the bigger questions in the
gun policy space, things like assault weapons bans, magazine capacity bans.
(20:15):
And I think in a weird way— assuming the Supreme
Court doesn't change from its current makeup, it'll strike those down.
And I think it will actually cause a revolution in
how we talk about gun policy, because so much of
gun policy right now is focused on these longstanding, like
(20:36):
very blanket issues, where from my perspective, I'd look at,
you know, something like a assault weapons ban. I'd be like,
that's useless, but that's all we fight about. And once
those are gone, I think it's going to actually force
the conversation to change about, OK, Now that we know
we can't ban these anymore because that was a dominant
unconstitutional idea, what does it look like to save lives?
(20:57):
What does it look like to be a responsible gun owner?
What does it look like for there to be some
government oversight and intervention, but that isn't in a blanket,
generally applicable way for like Martha Stewart?
Speaker 2 (21:10):
Yeah. I love that Martha is also your, you know,
the one.
Speaker 3 (21:13):
It is. This is a big thing in the overcrime
and Second Amendment world because it's it's Martha Stewart. You know,
unless the government, the federal government changes how it does
restoration of rights, she's never going to get her gun
rights back unless Trump pardons her. And that's an insane thing. Right.
You know, part of a much bigger conversation. But it's
(21:34):
it's for a reason. Martha Stewart comes up for a reason.
And it's not just because she's tamed Snoop Dogg. Right.
Speaker 1 (21:41):
But she has actually tamed Snoop Dogg.
Speaker 2 (21:45):
Amy, I have loved this conversation. I really love getting
to know you a little bit better.
Speaker 1 (21:49):
Leave us here with your best tip for my listeners
on how they can improve their lives.
Speaker 3 (21:54):
All right. So I'm really mad at Randy Barnett right
now because he actually gave on your show, what I
thought was the most profound answer I've ever heard, which
to re-up that was live your life like you're going
to write a memoir. And so I think I'm going
to give two pieces of advice. One's very quick. So, yes,
(22:18):
I'm cheating again. But that I think play into that,
that it's a way to think about how to write
your memoir, you know, how to live your life in
that way. So the first, marry well. Marry well. Marriage
is an amazing thing. Ten out of ten recommend when
you have the right partner, the way that it transforms
(22:39):
you as an individual and it just enriches your life.
Speaker 1 (22:43):
Amazing.
Speaker 3 (22:43):
Amazing. marry well and you'll write a better memoir um
and the second become an expert at strategic topography all
right let me explain let me explain life is about
knowing hills it's about knowing which hills are worth fighting
on which hills are worth dying on and just as
important knowing which hills are not important at all and
(23:06):
you can let other people die on those because it's
what are we doing um And I think a lot
of times people spend so much time not understanding that
or not thinking about it in advance. And so they
learn the hard way, like, man, I think I should
have died on that hill. Right. I think maybe that's
the hill I should have died on. Or maybe, you know,
that was a hill I didn't need to die on.
(23:28):
And I think this is true both in your personal
capacity and your personal life. I think this is true
in your professional life. It's certainly true in public policy,
in a moral, spiritual sense. And I think the better
you can get early on it, it's thinking through and
recognizing and knowing for yourself what that means. You know,
(23:50):
what what hills do you know you have to look
like and and what hills you're like, y'all can have
fun fighting over that. I don't live in pizza over
in my valley. I think it's really going to thinking
about life like a memoir. You don't want to be
writing a memoir about how you died on all the
(24:10):
wrong hills. Yeah. How you've wasted all of your political
and social capital for things that didn't matter. So become
an expert. Marry well. Become an expert in strategic topography.
Love it.
Speaker 2 (24:22):
Choose the hills to die on wisely. She is Amy Swear.
Thank you so much for coming on The Carol Markowitz Show.
Speaker 3 (24:29):
Thanks, Carol.
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