Michelle Maples - Conservative Defense Attorney Joins Houston's Morning News

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Okay, Kliss been talking about this this morning, This new
online dashboard that is being set up to track firearm
injuries and deaths in Houston. The Houston Health Department launch
this interactive database on Tuesday. It's called safe watch Houston,
the first to combine multiple sources, says the kron of

(00:20):
data on firearm injuries, pulling from Level one trauma centers,
the Medical Examiner's Office, Texas Medical Center, and of course
the Houston Police Department.

Speaker 2 (00:28):
What's this for?

Speaker 1 (00:30):
Joining us now? Is Michelle Maple. She is a gun
rights attorney.

Speaker 2 (00:33):
Michelle, good morning, Good morning. So what do you make of.

Speaker 1 (00:37):
The dashboard here and the intention, according to those behind
it to simply increase education and awareness. This is not
a fight over guns, they say, This is about common
sense safety and each of us can do our part.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
What's your reaction to that.

Speaker 3 (00:53):
I'm not totally offended by the dashboard, but this is
something that we're going to have to watch because it
could turn into a slippery slope. I like transparency, I
like data, I like statistics, and what this dashboard will
show is that the majority of gun injuries and gun
deaths come from a consolidated, consolidated areas in Houston. They're

(01:18):
typically isolated, they're related to drugs, they're related to other
violent crimes like robbery, burglary, or they're related to individuals
who should have never had a gun in the first
place because they're felons. So what that means is that
this dashboard will show that lawful gun owners, people who

(01:39):
have their permits are the most unlikely people to commit
crimes with the gun, the most unlikely people to get
injured or kill somebody with a firearm. Now, with that said,
we've got to watch this because they also are saying
that this is a public health issue, and we know
from our past couple of years when they use the

(02:02):
word public health, you need to think, uh oh, how
are they going to want to take control on this issue?

Speaker 4 (02:08):
And that's the problem.

Speaker 2 (02:10):
No question about it. That is exactly what they mean.

Speaker 1 (02:13):
Anytime they talk about guns being a health concern, they
you know, they're they're set to do some sort of
regulating and institute some sort of radical policy to take
guns out of play. You mentioned, you know what some
of the you know, specifics are about a lot of
the shootings, and what you think they'll find. I don't
understand how specific the dashboard is how specific will that
reporting be because it's unlikely to say, okay, gang, this

(02:36):
was a gang shooting, or this was you know what
I mean, and this was from an unlawful gun owner
and so forth. Are are they going to allow for
all of that data to be entered into this so
that we can find those things out?

Speaker 3 (02:49):
Well, if they want this dashboard to have any sort
of validity, and they want to, you know, hang their
hat on this dashboard, they better be as transparent as possible,
with the most detailed statistics as possible, because if not,
then anybody can poke holes through it and then.

Speaker 4 (03:05):
And then what good it is?

Speaker 3 (03:06):
It?

Speaker 4 (03:07):
Then then it loses all credibility.

Speaker 3 (03:09):
And so it's actually in the City of Houston's interest
to make sure that this thing is as detailed as possible.

Speaker 2 (03:13):
I totally agree with that.

Speaker 1 (03:15):
And you know the reason I guess I have I'm
skeptical in somewhat about all of this is simply because of,
you know, the way what their agenda is. When they
call it a public health crisis, you know they're going
to list the number of I mean, I'm looking at
safe Watch data right now, eighteen three and forty nine
firearm related emergency room visits, seven thousand trauma center visits,
and on down the line. And if they just collect

(03:35):
those in generalities like that to say, see see how
to see how much of a public health crisis this is,
then it's going to be used perhaps for you know,
more nefarious purposes again to crack down on people's Second am.

Speaker 2 (03:48):
M I rights.

Speaker 3 (03:49):
That's exactly right, And that's why we've got to stay
vigilant with this sort of stuff.

Speaker 4 (03:52):
Is if we're going to have this sort of database,
and every.

Speaker 3 (03:56):
Gun owner out there does not want, you know, their
firearm on some REDI Street and some database. I mean,
I don't want the government knowing how many firearms are
in my house.

Speaker 4 (04:04):
It's the last thing I want them to know.

Speaker 3 (04:06):
And so anytime that we gun owners here grunt Street
or database, our little spidey senses need to go up
and we need to make sure that our Second Amendment
rights are where they remain intact and that we do
not get this sort of information out.

Speaker 1 (04:20):
It's sad that we have to question the motives of
anything having to do with the Second Amendment, but I
do I question the motives of the Health Department and
their intent on all of this, so I.

Speaker 2 (04:29):
Agree with you.

Speaker 1 (04:29):
They better be very very specific and people better make
sure that the truth is gleaned from whatever statistics they
report there, because they can use them to take away rights.
Michelle Maple's Second Amendment specialist attorney, thank you so much
for the time.

Speaker 2 (04:44):
We appreciate it.

Speaker 4 (04:46):
Thank you.