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Friday, March 29, 2024 | Back issues
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Mom’s Fondness for Georgia Gun Laws Backfires at School

AUGUSTA, Ga. (CN) - A military veteran sued her daughter's school, claiming it illegally barred her from campus after she posted a photo of her concealed weapons permit on Facebook to brag to out-of-state friends how cool Georgia gun laws are.

Tanya Perry Mount sued the Richmond County School System, it police Capt. Ted Brown, and McBean Elementary School Principal Janina Dallas, in Federal Court.

Mount claims she had to transfer her daughter to an "out of zone" school after the school district unconstitutionally banned her from campus in October.

Mount's daughter attended McBean Elementary School until Capt. Brown called Mount in for a meeting on Oct. 23.

There, Brown and one of his officers told Mount that she "was banned from the McBean Elementary School ... [and] would be arrested and prosecuted for criminal trespass ... if she returned to the property or grounds of McBean," according to the complaint.

When Mount asked the reason for ban, "Brown and the officer told plaintiff that defendant Dallas was afraid of plaintiff because plaintiff is a former member of the U.S. Armed Forces and because plaintiff posted an image of her GWL [Georgia Weapons Carry License] on plaintiff's Facebook page," the complaint states.

Mount says she posted the photo of her Georgia gun license to show friends in New Jersey, where she used to live, that Georgia's gun laws are better than New Jersey's.

"Under New Jersey law, the right to keep and bear arms is severely restricted, and it is all but impossible for an average citizen to obtain a license to carry arms," the complaint states.

"Proud of her GWL and anxious to show friends in New Jersey that Georgia is less restrictive of the right to keep and bear arms than New Jersey, plaintiff displayed a photograph of her GWL on her Facebook page on or about October 16, 2013."

Mount says she never made any threats and never had any heated or violent confrontations with principal Dallas.

She says that when she told Brown that it would be impossible for her to participate meaningfully in her daughter's education while prohibited from school grounds, Brown "advised plaintiff to seek to have her daughter moved to an 'out of zone' school."

Seeing no other alternative, Mount says, she made the request to move and it was granted.

For her daughter to remain enrolled in the out of zone school, the district requires perfect attendance with no tardies, among other things, and the out of zone assignment is valid for just one year.

But Mount's criminal trespass warning is permanent and has no expiration date.

Mount claims her daughter no longer can take the bus to school and that she had to pay a second school supply fee for her daughter's new school.

Mount seeks declaratory judgment and damages for free speech violations.

She also seeks an injunction allowing her back on school grounds, prohibiting the district from arresting, detaining or prosecuting her for being there, and transferring her daughter back to McBean.

She is represented by John Monroe, of Roswell.

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