http://tennessean.com/article/200905...gger+at+school

By Mitchell Kline • The Tennessean • May 21, 2009
Judge: Man might have been better off pulling trigger at school
FRANKLIN — A Williamson County judge sentenced a Fairview man to 20 days in jail for handling a gun on school property -- and said the man might have been better off if he’d pulled the trigger.


On Thursday, Tracy C. Clark, 37, told Circuit Court Judge James G. Martin III, that he’d gotten into a verbal altercation at Westwood Elementary School on Jan. 30, 2006 after his 9-year-old son’s basketball game. Clark said the father of rival player came to his truck and held a knife as if threatening to stab him.

Clark, who had a handgun carry permit, said he told the man he had a gun and pulled a 9 mm handgun from the center console of his pickup truck and put it on the driver’s seat. The gun was not loaded and never left its holster, according to Clark.

“I never brandished it,” Clark said. “I never showed it. I did not know what the best thing to do was.”

Martin said under state law regulating weapons on school property, Clark might have avoided a conviction if he had actually pointed the gun or used it because that would have demonstrated self-defense.

“There’s no question he was in a situation where a man pulled a knife on him,” Martin said. “It’s an extremely unusual statute… in the defense side of it. While it’s illegal to possess a firearm (on school grounds) it’s OK if you use it to defend yourself.”

The law states that it is legal for an adult to bring a weapon to a school campus as long as it is kept in a vehicle and not handled. Martin said Clark admittedly handled the gun.


Martin said he hopes his sentence sends a message that “if you carry a firearm on school property you are going to spend some time in jail.”


Martin found Clark guilty of possession of a weapon on school property, a class B misdemeanor. The judge sentenced Clark to 20 days in jail and six months of probation, ordered him to take anger management classes and said he cannot possess or handle a firearm.

“It’s ironic that, under the statute, if he’d have pointed it at him things would be different,” Martin said. “By his own testimony he didn’t display it or use it in self-defense.”

In 2006, Circuit Court Judge Timothy Easter dismissed the charge against Clark, ruling he acted in self-defense. Last year, the state’s Court of Appeals ruled that Easter erred in dismissing the charge and remanded the case for reinstatement of the indictment.

Assistant District Attorney Chris Vernon said he’d originally offered Clark the chance to plead guilty and serve one year of probation.

Proving beyond doubt the utter stupidity in "GUN FREE ZONES".