Justice is a step closer today, and the Second Amendment Foundation’s (SAF’s) legal battle against Hillsboro-Deering High School officials has been won.
The New Hampshire school district admitted that its 2025 search of an 18-year-old student’s vehicle for a firearm, without his or his parent’s consent, was unconstitutional. The SAF quickly filed Harrington v. Crawford in the U.S. District Court for the District of New Hampshire.
Jack Harrington was an 18-year-old senior at the time and lawfully owned a handgun that he sometimes carried in his truck. Never on school grounds, which is expressly prohibited.
Gun ownership does not waive other constitutional rights
That did not matter to school employees when they learned that Harrington told a friend that he owned the weapon. Despite his refusal to consent to having his vehicle pored over when confronted, they searched him anyway.
A search that turned up nothing. The legal firearm was stored at his residence and nowhere near the campus.
SAF Executive Director Adam Kraut understands officials wanting to maintain a safe environment, but they raced past constitutional barricades in forcing a student–without reasonable suspicion–to undergo such treatment.
School safety does not preclude the Bill of Rights
“Maintaining safety on school grounds is a laudable goal,” Kraut said. “But the Constitution demands that school officials have, at minimum, reasonable suspicion to search a student’s property. Critically, choosing to exercise one’s Second Amendment rights cannot be interpreted as a waiver of your rights under the Fourth Amendment, nor can it create reasonable suspicion of a crime.”
SAF Founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb added that acknowledging ownership “does not justify endless harassment or subject you to invasive searches.”
The stipulated declaratory judgment put an exclamation point on the unconstitutional search by school officials.
“A search of a student’s person, property, or vehicle based solely on the exercise of a constitutional or legal right, including the fundamental right to keep and bear arms guaranteed under the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which encompasses the right to carry, store, or transport a handgun [in] a vehicle or in the glove box of a vehicle, would constitute an unconstitutional and illegal search in violation of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution.”
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