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Let’s see……Students….
Have I ever tossed anyone? Not really. I have had a few “ineligibles� that left at the first break.
Way back in the Fall of 1995 , I had about 16 students and the one sitting closest to me was very nervous. We were about to finish the first hour and take the old 10 question Pre-Test ( remember that ?).
This guy was nervous from the start . By the time the pre-test rolled around he was vibrating the whole room. Tapping feet, shaking hands, looking over his shoulder, etc. As I handed out the pre-test , he got up, asked to get his handgun out of the vault, and took off. The whole class was relieved and had noticed him.
My buddy with the PD who was doing the prints at the time ran his info and it turned out he was a felon.
One of the first things that I have always done is go over the Eligibility Affadavit at the beginning of class.

I had one lady that fingered a fellow student. I had a guy bragging about killing all the neighbor’s cats at a break. A lady cat lover overheard him and was shocked. I explained to her that some folks really don’t like cats…not that it’s an excuse. She asked me if she could write a letter to the State and complain about him and rat him out. I laughed and told I could not stop her. She got a Harris County Deputy to run his plate and she talked him into giving up his name and address. She also reported him to his county’s SO and she kept him from getting a license. The moral of the story: I have had 5 students out of many thousands get into trouble. They all got in trouble after running their mouths.

Another lady in early 1996, walked in for a three weeknight class with her lawyer. She told me she wanted to take the class and that she was told she was ineligible and wanted to fight the guidelines. I laughed and asked , "so what's your problem ?" She said , " I am of unsound mind!".
Which was one of the items on the Eligibility Affadavit at the time. I told her , "Oh great!" and laughed. We started class. Don't know why the lawyer had to escort her though. Her husband was a Fortune 40 SrVP and she and her kids took meds for ADD and that would DQ her with the State. She challenged it. She got her license and you will note the the "unsound mind " line went away and in its place we got the " I am not incapable of exercising sound judgement with respect to.....blah, blah."

And of course, my mouthiest and most smartassed student ever was a Justice of the Peace.

I had one guy who was a felon (sawed off shotgun- he thought it was okay if you kept it in your house) who paid to sit through the class (less the shooting ) just to learn about Texas Ch. 9 and Ch. 46. Nice guy, it’s turns out.

If I start to get too many war stories or smartass comments, I tell them to hold their questions until just before the next break. If people persist, I let them know they are slowing down things for the entire class so please be more considerate. That usually works and the rest of the class appreciates the effort. And usually fate intervenes when students boast of their shooting prowess. They usually feel the pressure and shoot a below class average score.

Nowadays, we do more “pre-screening� via talking to them over the phone when they register. That gets a lot of the nonsense out of the way before class. Also, there are some group dynamics that come into play.
Some folks will cut up in a class of 6-8 folks and they won’t in front of a group of 20 . And I have found that most students are more attentive in a class of 15-20 than a small class of 4-8. They seem to get a little more energy being in the bigger group.
J