The Second Amendment Foundation has filed a reply brief in a federal lawsuit challenging a New Hampshire high school administration’s decision to search an 18-year-old student’s vehicle based on his lawful gun ownership.
The brief was filed August 5, 2026, in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire in the case Harrington v. Crawford. The lawsuit stems from an October incident involving Jack Harrington, then a senior at Hillsboro-Deering High School.
According to court filings, school officials searched Harrington’s truck while it was parked on school grounds. Harrington lawfully owns a handgun and had occasionally kept it in his vehicle outside of school hours, but state and federal records indicate he did not bring the firearm onto school property.
Attorneys for Harrington state that district officials initiated an interrogation and conducted the vehicle search without proper consent or reasonable suspicion after learning of his off-campus gun ownership.
“The school’s knowledge that Jack was a lawful gun owner outside of school did not justify their search of his truck,” said SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “They had no information to indicate he had ever brought the gun to school or had done anything illegal or against school policy whatsoever. The search they conducted could not have been supported by probable cause or even reasonable suspicion.”
Sack added that administrators pressed forward despite objections from the student. “Administrators ignored repeated insistent refusals by Jack to provide consent and now rest their hat on the fact that after telling him the search was going to happen regardless, he replied ‘okay.’ That is not consent in the eyes of the law.”
In the legal filing, the foundation argued that the legal burden rests on the defendants to prove that voluntary consent was provided without duress.
“Consent obtained by coercion is invalid ‘no matter how subtly the coercion was applied,'” the brief states, citing federal precedent.
In court depositions cited in the filing, school officials acknowledged that the decision to search the truck was made prior to speaking with Harrington. High School Principal Vincent McGinn testified during depositions that he believed a “possibility” of a firearm on campus supplied reasonable suspicion, defining that threshold as “anything above zero.”
The filing also notes the involvement of a local police officer during the questioning, which the plaintiff’s legal team argues raised the legal standard required for the search to probable cause.
“School district officials took it upon themselves to infringe on a lawful gun owner’s rights based on the baseless ‘possibility’ that he had committed a crime, which is not sufficient to justify a search,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “Being perceived as a lawful gun owner does not place you in a class of second-class citizens who are subject to search at any time.”
Attorneys representing the school district argued in previous filings that officials acted on information relayed by a staff member regarding an overheard conversation about a past traffic stop. The plaintiff’s brief counters that the relayed information contained no reference to school property or any ongoing policy violation.
The case remains pending before U.S. District Court Judge Joseph N. Laplante.
READ: Florida Supreme Court Eyed As Execution Date Looms For Wife Killer
Please make a small donation to the Tampa Free Press to help sustain independent journalism. Your contribution enables us to continue delivering high-quality, local, and national news coverage.
Sign up: Subscribe to our free newsletter for a curated selection of top stories delivered straight to your inbox.
