TexasCHLforum.com

03Lightningrocks wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:38 pm

Tex1961 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:05 pm

philip964 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 11:53 am We shouldn’t forget that criminals with known bad intentions are free to carry where ever they want.

The LTC is a good guy card. Police and others will rely on it. Persons with questionable skill, mental problems or bad actors, should not be passed.

Face tattoos or deer in headlight eyes on this guy?

Deer in the headlight...

Just in casual conversation, myself, the other instructor and The RSO all got weird vibes from him. Things like talking about coming up from the border building Trumps wall, flashing me hand signals from the back of the room then mad at me because I don't know military hand signals.. Just enough weird, bragging, off-putting conversations and then top it off with failure to follow instructions multiple times... Failure to control his firearm in a safe manner. things like trying to put a round in the chamber with his finger on the trigger. Attempting to load his rounds backwards 3 different times. flagging everyone multiple times.. Then all mad and not understanding why he was asked to leave the range and then telling me that he should leave because he would probably disrupt my class.... 1+1+1+1+1 = No LTC for you today....

It almost sounds like someone pulling a video stunt to post on you tube. I am belly laughing at this story. Especially the flashing military signals from the back of the classroom. Are you sure you didn't get pranked....LOL. This just sounds too crazy to be real.

So, the sad part is how close to correct you are... I can't even begin to explain how ridiculous it looked.. Imagine a 5 year old jumping up and down trying to get his moms attention because he has to go to the bathroom.... It took me a minute to two to figure out what this person was doing. we're doing our best every class to maintain at least some level of professionalism, but some people make it pretty hard....

AF-Odin wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 12:28 pm Makes me glad that the majority of my students are active military, retirees, vets, or family members of those groups. They know to keep the booger hook off of the bang switch, how to clear a firearm (and inspect the chamber), and keep the firearm pointed in the safest direction possible.

I'll Trade Ya....

My record so far is range failing 3 out of 5. 2 young ladies loading ammo backwards, I asked them politely to leave and told them they should get more training (both did and came back and passed) and the third regular fail from low score 150 points.
On average I do two range quals per month for online students and then 1 full blown in person class and range. The online students are the worst. On average I have 3 to 8 students per range test and fail 1 to 3 per class. The majority are asked to leave as they have no prior knowledge of firearms at all and think this is a training class even though they get multiple emails telling them that it is a qualifying test, not a training class. And during their pre flight briefing I tell them again in person that if they don't know how to load, unload, clear malfunctions safely and accurately handle a firearm that they should not take the test. Most just quietly sit there and then we hit the range and the truth comes out... But that's ok... $75.00 per hour for private lesson plus range fee's adds up each week...

philip964 wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 11:53 am We shouldn’t forget that criminals with known bad intentions are free to carry where ever they want.

The LTC is a good guy card. Police and others will rely on it. Persons with questionable skill, mental problems or bad actors, should not be passed.

Face tattoos or deer in headlight eyes on this guy?

Deer in the headlight...

Just in casual conversation, myself, the other instructor and The RSO all got weird vibes from him. Things like talking about coming up from the border building Trumps wall, flashing me hand signals from the back of the room then mad at me because I don't know military hand signals.. Just enough weird, bragging, off-putting conversations and then top it off with failure to follow instructions multiple times... Failure to control his firearm in a safe manner. things like trying to put a round in the chamber with his finger on the trigger. Attempting to load his rounds backwards 3 different times. flagging everyone multiple times.. Then all mad and not understanding why he was asked to leave the range and then telling me that he should leave because he would probably disrupt my class.... 1+1+1+1+1 = No LTC for you today....

mayor wrote: ↑Tue Jul 19, 2022 9:28 am

jb2012 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 11:56 pm

mayor wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 1:56 pm We could use a red flag law.

Is this a joke?

I understand that LTC classes could go horribly wrong.

I just find it ironic that, on the one hand, most members of this forum are against "red flag laws", yet, on the other, that's what this thread seems to advocate. Preventing an individual from receiving a LTC won't keep said individual from owning a firearm. It seems, to me, that the closest thing Texas has is Health and safet code - in particular Chapter 573 and it is vague as to how it works.
Returning their fee for the class and telling them, politely, to hit the road seems like a good idea.
Either we are all free or none of us are free.
My .02
IANAL

I understand the all or nothing, however in this situation there are a few differences... Nobody is preventing this person from owning a firearm and with constitutional carry it's a non issue anyway. Also I'd like to think there is a bit of a difference between a blanket red flag where anyone could call and have your firearms removed without due process and a situation where your are taking a class to be LICENSED to carry a firearm, and a seasoned Licensed instructor who is actively observing both your skills, (or lake there of), failure to follow basic commands and overall a danger to themselves and others as observed. We as instructors have a duty to inform if we feel that a student may be a danger to themselves or others though action, or words.

philip964 wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 6:02 pm Was this student under 25 or so?

I have had an experience one time with a paranoid schizophrenic as they are beginning to go down that path.

If this person is that age, that’s when it happens.

Loading bullets backwards, that would be a symptom, everyone being unfair to them. Agitation.

Geez and around loaded guns.

I’d say mid to upper 40’s. Just one of those guys who likes to brag and just immature. For us it was the fact that he couldn’t understand why he got removed from the range. Here is a copy of the range instructors after action email.

We experienced issues with him before we even began the live-fire exercises. He took his weapon out of the box and I informed him that we needed to keep the barrel pointed down-range. From the jump, he was flagging everyone to his left. This made things considerably worse, because he was in lane 5 and had 4 other people to his left.

As we began instructions for the first string of fire, I instructed the line to load 5 rounds into their magazines. This particular person began to load his rounds backwards. I Stepped in and showed him how to load the rounds correctly. He advised that, "it's been a while since I have shot a pistol. I'm used to shooting rifles." My response, "you do know that pistol and rifle rounds are inserted into the magazine the same way, correct?"

Prior to being given instructions to pick up their weapons, he picked it up and once again flagged people to his left with the muzzle. Once again I repeated by saying, "down-range, muzzle down-range." The bigger issue is that he picked up his weapon before being instructed to do so, but also my concern was by how unsafe he went about doing it. I walked up to him and told him that this was his last warning and one more infraction and I would ask him to leave the range.

At that point, I instructed the line to pick up their weapons and to insert their magazines and to load and chamber a round. This proved to be a precarious task as this person had his finger on the trigger the entire time. Before he could chamber a round I stated, "finger off the trigger, finger off the trigger." He did not take his finger off the trigger and before he could load the magazine into his weapon, myself and the RSO stepped in and stopped him. That's when I explained to him that he had too many issues and that perhaps he needed to take a firearms familiarization or gun safety course. He was removed from the lane. Prior to leaving, he walked past me and gave me a look of disdain. I am not someone who is normally shaken, but considering he had an unsecured weapon and ammo at his disposal, I informed the range personnel that the customer should most likely not be allowed to come back to the range area. I gave them a brief description and then continued with the string of fire for the remaining students.

I have nearly twenty years of range experience, and this was by far the scariest thing I have seen on the range. The student's attitude towards instruction, myself, and nonchalance with a firearm were quite alarming. If you need further information, please feel free to reach out to me.

Just got off the phone with a DPS RSD supervisor and per his request did send in a report from both myself, the range instructor and RSO as to the students actions. Per my email I did not request any particular action be taken, however the supervisor did state that they will at least be able to look to see if they have any background history on this person.

We generally have at least one student per class that we ask to leave the range due to being unsafe or unfamiliar with their weapon and therefore a potential liability. We always offer our services for private basic pistol course to help them out. This student went beyond in both repeated safety violations and just basic personality observations from myself and the other instructor and RSO that gave us some concern as to his mental health as it may relate to carrying a firearm.

Waiting on a callback from a supervisor with Regulatory Services. Will forward both mine and the other Instructors observations and get their opinion.

AF-Odin wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 10:53 am Paladin, first I have heard of FBI sending plants to our classes. As for Tex1961; as a minimum I would send a letter to RSD stating my concerns about this student with a simple statement of facts and no recommendation. I would also KEEP a copy of the memo. Just my CYA kicking in. Luckily I have only had one student with an attitude similar.

I'm leaning towards that.. Send a letter from both myself and the range instructor just as a heads up, but no recommendation either way. The RI and The RSO both told me that he had given them some VERY bad looks as he was leaving. The sort of I'm going to do bad things to you look.. Just everything about this guy screamed problem.... I've had some upset students before after failing the range quals, but nothing like this guy...

I would like to get a few opinions from some other instructors about a student. Had a class over the weekend and everyone was great except one student. First off you know how you can kind of tell a lot about a person by their dress, accessories and their bragging in about 5 minutes or less. Yeah, that was this guy.. Military style backpack, some tactical clothing.. Something about coming up from the boarder where his team was building Trumps wall... So, ok.. a few little flags are going off but nothing serious... We go through the pre range safety briefing and range rules, etc.. My range instructor takes the first group to the range.. (Also, my range instructor has not interfaced with this guy yet, so no pre conceived thoughts... Anyway, about 10 minutes later I see this guy at the back of the room being quite animated with my RSO and is franticly making hand gestures to get me to come back there... So I do and this guy is going off on the other instructor and RSO. He got kicked off the range even before they fired the first round.. Unable to follow instructions, unsafe handling of his weapon, loading rounds backwards. etc... The problem was that he could not understand why he got kicked out.. Which of course afterwards I spoke to the range instructor and found out why as explained above..

So he's pretty agitated and I'm telling him sir, I wasn't on the range so I can't really tell you why, but why don't you go ahead and sit down so we can start the classroom portion and you can at least get that part done and we can reschedule your range quals for another day... He is all I just don't know if I can sit in the class without being disruptive. I need to cool down for a while, I don't want to be combative during your class, etc, etc, etc.. So I'm like sure, I understand. Why don't you leave and cool down and you can reschedule your class, your already paid up...

Fortunately for us he left and hopefully I'll never see him again...

So here is my question... We as instructors have the authority to write to the state letting them know. that we don't recommend a student getting their LTC. We of course have to state our case, etc.. My question is I'm not 100% sure if this guy was just having a bad day or is just not fit to get his LTC.. Personally I wouldn't allow him in my class again, but should I prevent him from any future opportunities for his LTC...

Thoughts