Drama doesn’t start to cowl it.
Marion Hammer — the 87-year-old former NRA president who created the Eddie Eagle GunSafe® program and is broadly credited with pioneering Florida’s concealed-carry licensing framework — is suing the NRA for unpaid compensation. And her deposition earlier this month apparently went about as sideways as a deposition can go.
Based on subscription authorized information service Law360, Hammer reportedly informed NRA legal professional Brian Hayden, “You suppose you’re God. And I feel you’re an asshole,” sooner or later through the proceedings — and allegedly directed comparable language at him a number of instances all through the listening to.
Then issues allegedly bought bodily.
The NRA claims Hammer threw water from her glass at Hayden throughout her testimony. Hammer flatly denies it. The NRA additionally alleged she tried to knock over Hayden’s espresso cup, although Hammer says she doesn’t recall that both.
The NRA’s authorized workforce has requested the courtroom to toss her lawsuit fully over the alleged misconduct, arguing that the habits crossed properly previous garden-variety deposition friction:
“Dismissal with prejudice is warranted as a result of plaintiff didn’t merely take part in a contentious or tough deposition; she willfully obstructed the deposition, escalated the continuing from verbal abuse to bodily aggression, and assaulted protection counsel Brian Hayden.”
They added:
“That conduct was not merely impolite, uncooperative and evasive. It was additionally deliberate, escalating, and bodily aggressive conduct that introduced the deposition to a essential halt.”
Hammer, for her half, supplied a blunt clarification for why she’s in courtroom in any respect. She informed the Second Modification Basis’s Investigative Journalism Venture — which first broke the story — that the NRA merely stiffed her:
“They labored me to demise and didn’t pay me. They promised to pay me and didn’t, so I’m suing for cost. I’ve two lawsuits: one in Florida and one in Virginia. They cancelled my non-cancellable contract. I’m 87 years previous.”
She additionally had selection phrases in regards to the NRA legal professional she allegedly focused:
“He’s an legal professional who can’t make a dwelling, so he’s stayed with the NRA all these years. He hates me and he pushed it. I’m not doing properly bodily so that they hope I’ll die quickly they usually received’t must pay me.”
Hammer filed swimsuit towards the NRA on Might 8, 2025, alleging the group misappropriated her title, picture, and likeness, and deposited a examine supposed for an NRA charity into its personal account as an alternative.
She served because the NRA’s first feminine president from 1995 to 1998. Past the Eddie Eagle program and Florida’s carry legislation, she spent many years as one of the vital efficient gun rights lobbyists within the nation.
No matter you consider the NRA’s present management or the messy inner politics which have outlined the group lately, watching one of many gun rights motion’s most completed figures find yourself in a courtroom battle with the group she spent her profession serving is a genuinely ugly factor to witness.
This story was initially reported by Lee Williams for the Second Modification Basis’s Investigative Journalism Venture.
