How would you select an element in HTML using JS?

Pure Javascript

Based in your use of .find, you basically want to know whether a node is contained in another node. Every DOM node has a method .contains, so all you have to do is iterate over the collection of DOM elements and call that method:

var contained = false;
for (var i = 0; i < searchControls.length; i++) {

    if (searchControls[i].contains(e.target)) {

        contained = true;

        break;

    }}

jQuery Approach