SAF Reply Brief Says New Hampshire School Searched an 18-Year-Old’s Truck Solely Because He Lawfully Owns a Handgun

Estimated reading time: 6 minutes

HILLSBORO, NH — The Second Amendment Foundation filed a reply brief on August 5, 2026, in Harrington v. Crawford, a federal civil rights lawsuit over the search of an 18-year-old high school senior’s truck in the parking lot of Hillsboro-Deering High School. The case is pending in the United States District Court for the District of New Hampshire, Case No. 1:25-cv-407-JL-AJ, and names Jennifer Crawford and other school district officials as defendants.

SAF filed the suit in October 2025 on behalf of student Jack Harrington. According to the Second Amendment Foundation, Harrington lawfully owns a handgun and sometimes kept it in his truck in full compliance with federal law and New Hampshire gun law, but always removed the firearm from the vehicle before going to school. SAF says that once school authorities learned he was a gun owner, he was subjected to aggressive interrogation by district employees that ended with his truck being searched without his consent.

The reply brief makes three arguments. First, that school officials targeted Harrington for the search based solely on third-hand information showing only that he had lawfully exercised his Second Amendment rights off school property and outside school hours. Second, that such information falls far short of both probable cause and reasonable suspicion. Third, that the undisputed facts establish, as a matter of law, that he did not consent.

The most striking passage is about what the officials themselves thought the legal standard was. Reasonable suspicion is the lower of the two bars here. It requires specific, articulable facts pointing to wrongdoing, not a hunch. Yet the brief notes that the defendants concede in their own objection that it is “[u]ndisputed that McGinn testified that he believed a possibility that a firearm might be on campus supported reasonable suspicion and that reasonable suspicion exists when there is more than a zero percent chance.” SAF’s answer is one line: “Reasonable suspicion is not a mere ‘possibility’ or ‘anything above zero.’” The brief also states that the defendants do not dispute they cannot satisfy the probable cause standard at all.

That is the whole ballgame in one sentence of deposition testimony. If more than a zero percent chance is enough, then every gun owner in America is searchable at all times, because there is always a nonzero chance.

The brief also dismantles the chain of information that supposedly justified the search. The defendants’ theory leans on assistant softball coach Dean’s inference that a traffic stop Harrington described during what the filing calls the Bus Conversation happened right after he left school property. The problem, per the brief, is that Dean never told anyone that. Dean never spoke to any defendant. Wood, the only person Dean talked to, testified that what Dean reported contained no school connection whatsoever and that he passed nothing more along to McGinn. Reasonable suspicion is measured at the inception of a search, meaning by the facts actually known to the officials who ordered it at the moment they ordered it, not by what someone privately thought and kept to himself.

On consent, the brief lays out who carries the burden: “The burden lies with Defendants to establish by a preponderance of the evidence that valid, voluntary consent to the Search was given. Consent ‘coerced by threats or force, or granted only in submission to a claim of lawful authority’ is invalid. Moreover, the evidence of voluntary consent must be ‘unequivocal, specific, and intelligently given, uncontaminated by any duress or coercion.’” Preponderance of the evidence means more likely than not, and here it is the school’s job to prove it, not Harrington’s job to disprove it.

SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack said the school had nothing to work with. “The school’s knowledge that Jack was a lawful gun owner outside of school did not justify their search of his truck,” Sack said. “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. 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. Jack’s Fourth Amendment rights were violated here.”

SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb framed it as a citizenship question. “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,” Gottlieb said. “These school officials overstepped their authority here and we’re happy to help Mr. Harrington remind them of their duties under the Constitution.”

What stands out to me is the eighteen-year-old’s conduct. By SAF’s account he refused consent repeatedly and insistently, and only said “okay” after being told the search would happen with or without him. That is the correct play, and it is worth burning into your head before you ever need it. You do not physically resist, you do not argue your way into a second problem, and you do not stop saying no. Refusal preserves the issue for a court later; consent forfeits it. The reason this case is a live Fourth Amendment fight instead of a closed file is that Harrington kept saying no on the record.

The broader principle matters just as much for adults who carry. Lawful gun ownership is not evidence of a crime. The brief’s core claim is that the only thing anybody actually knew about Jack Harrington was that he legally owned a firearm and legally had it in his vehicle away from school, and that this alone triggered an interrogation and a search. If that theory survives, the exercise of a constitutional right becomes the predicate for losing another one.

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These are the plaintiff’s arguments in a summary judgment brief, and the defendants dispute them. Summary judgment simply asks the judge to rule without a trial because the important facts are not genuinely in dispute. The court has not ruled on the motion, and nothing here has been decided.

I will continue tracking Harrington v. Crawford as it moves through the District of New Hampshire.