The Second Amendment Foundation is asking a federal judge to rule that New Hampshire school officials violated an 18-year-old student’s Fourth Amendment rights after searching his truck based solely, SAF says, on his lawful gun ownership. The search found no firearm.
In a July 15 motion for summary judgment in Harrington v. Crawford, SAF argues that lawful off-campus handgun possession did not give Hillsboro-Deering High School officials probable cause, or even reasonable suspicion, to search Jack Harrington’s vehicle.
Hillsboro-Deering High School officials searched Jack Harrington’s truck while it was parked on school property. They found no gun. According to SAF, Harrington’s Glock 43 was safely stored at his family’s home, nowhere near the campus.
Now, after discovery produced testimony from the officials involved, Harrington has moved for summary judgment.
“This case comes down to one simple and undeniable fact,” the motion argues. School officials allegedly searched Harrington’s vehicle based solely on his lawful exercise of “the right to keep and bear arms.”
A Week-Old Traffic Stop Becomes Grounds for a School Search
The controversy began with an uneventful off-campus traffic stop on April 11, 2025.
Harrington, who had turned 18 the previous November, lawfully had his Glock in the glove box. When he opened the compartment, he informed the officer about the handgun. New Hampshire law allows an 18-year-old who is not otherwise prohibited from possessing firearms to own a handgun and transport it in a vehicle.
Five days later, Harrington discussed the traffic stop with a friend while traveling on a school bus to an athletic event. An assistant softball coach sitting nearby thought he heard Harrington say, “It’s a good thing they didn’t look in my glove box, because that’s where I keep my gun.”
Harrington denies making that statement. The coach also admitted, according to the motion, that he never heard Harrington say he possessed a firearm on school property. Despite any supposed safety concern, the coach waited a week before reporting the conversation.
By the time the information reached Principal James O’Rourke, it had passed through the coach and the school’s athletic director. The motion says administrators did not interview Harrington’s friend or conduct any meaningful investigation before deciding to search the truck.
More importantly, O’Rourke reportedly acknowledged during his deposition that he had no evidence Harrington had brought a firearm to school. He knew Harrington could legally own a handgun and legally transport it in his glove box away from campus. The motion says officials had no indication Harrington had engaged in any illegal conduct anywhere.
Nevertheless, they treated the fact that Harrington had previously possessed a gun in his truck as evidence that the gun might be there on April 24.
That is not an investigation. It is a presumption of guilt attached to gun ownership.
An Armed Officer, a Closed Office and Repeated Refusals
Assistant Principal Brian McGinn removed Harrington from class and escorted him to an office where O’Rourke and Hillsboro Police Officer Michael DeTurris, the school resource officer, were waiting.
According to the motion, DeTurris wore his complete police uniform, including a badge, handcuffs, Taser and visible Glock handgun. He remained standing near the office’s only door while the two school administrators sat across from Harrington.
Harrington repeatedly said he did not have a firearm at school. When officials demanded access to his truck, he reportedly refused four or five times, using some variation of: “I am not going to let you guys search my truck.”
His parents also refused consent during a phone call that officials could hear. Harrington’s father said he was coming to the school and told administrators they had no right to search the vehicle.
The questioning continued.
The motion says O’Rourke repeatedly told Harrington that the truck would be searched regardless of what he said. Harrington eventually responded with a single “okay” after being informed yet again that the search was inevitable. School officials now contend that word amounted to consent.
The original complaint alleges O’Rourke later defended the search by saying, “we did nothing illegal; we have a statement that Jack keeps a gun in his glovebox.”
But possessing a gun in a glove box away from school was entirely legal. It did not establish that Harrington had a gun on campus.
School officials opened the glove box and found nothing, confirming what Harrington had told them all along. Shortly afterward, Harrington emailed McGinn:
“It’s wrong that my truck had to get searched. I didn’t do anything wrong to constitute that.”
Lawful Conduct Cannot Create Suspicion
SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack warned that allowing gun ownership to justify a search would place young gun owners under permanent suspicion.
“Entirely lawful and constitutionally protected conduct cannot be the grounds for a search,” said SAF Senior Director of Legal Operations Bill Sack. “School officials, especially when accompanied by law enforcement as was the case here, need at minimum reasonable suspicion to search a student’s vehicle. Here, those officials learning that our client was a gun owner gave them that suspicion. They are mistaken. If that were the case, student gun owners all over the country could be subject to repeated and endless harassment.”
That is the larger danger presented by this case. If simply knowing that someone owns a gun creates reasonable suspicion, any adult student who hunts, shoots competitively or carries lawfully could be searched repeatedly without evidence of wrongdoing.
The complaint calls that a “dangerous and unacceptable precedent.”
SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb said officials treated Harrington’s lawful firearm ownership as if it stripped him of his other constitutional protections.
“District officials – and even a school resource officer who should know better – took it upon themselves to violate the constitutional rights of a peaceable, adult, firearm owner for no other reason than they learned of his status as a gun owner,” said SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb. “This young man was interrogated and coerced into allowing school officials to search his vehicle because he chooses to exercise his rights as a private citizen. Law enforcement and school officials are required to understand the law and to follow it, and in this case, it appears they failed at both.”
The Second Amendment Does Not Cancel the Fourth
Public school officials normally operate under the lower “reasonable suspicion” standard established by the Supreme Court in New Jersey v. T.L.O. Harrington argues, however, that DeTurris’s substantial involvement as a sworn police officer elevated the required standard to probable cause.
The Supreme Court has not definitively settled the standard for a search jointly conducted by school officials and law enforcement. Harrington’s motion therefore makes the alternative argument that the search fails under either test.
Officials had no probable cause. They also lacked reasonable suspicion that the truck contained evidence of a crime or school-rule violation. Their only information concerned Harrington’s lawful possession of a handgun away from school nearly two weeks earlier.
The claimed consent is equally questionable. Consent obtained after repeated refusals, threats of discipline and declarations that the search will happen anyway is not meaningfully voluntary. It is submission to authority.
Harrington is seeking a declaration that the defendants violated his Fourth and Fourteenth Amendment rights, nominal damages, legal fees and judgment rejecting the defendants’ consent defense. The court has not yet ruled on the motion.
School safety is important, but it is not a magic phrase that wipes away the Bill of Rights. Government officials cannot use the exercise of one constitutional right as their excuse to invade another.
About Duncan Johnson:
Duncan Johnson is a lifelong firearms enthusiast and unwavering defender of the Second Amendment—where “shall not be infringed” means exactly what it says. A graduate of George Mason University, he enjoys competing in local USPSA and multi-gun competitions whenever he’s not covering the latest in gun rights and firearm policy. Duncan is a regular contributor to AmmoLand News and serves as part of the editorial team responsible for AmmoLand’s daily gun-rights reporting and industry coverage.
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