Drama doesn’t begin to cover it.
Marion Hammer — the 87-year-old former NRA president who created the Eddie Eagle GunSafe® program and is widely 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.
According to subscription legal news service Law360, Hammer reportedly told NRA attorney Brian Hayden, “You think you’re God. And I think you’re an asshole,” at some point during the proceedings — and allegedly directed similar language at him multiple times throughout the hearing.
Then things allegedly got physical.
The NRA claims Hammer threw water from her glass at Hayden during her testimony. Hammer flatly denies it. The NRA also alleged she attempted to knock over Hayden’s coffee cup, though Hammer says she doesn’t recall that either.
The NRA’s legal team has asked the court to toss her lawsuit entirely over the alleged misconduct, arguing that the behavior crossed well past garden-variety deposition friction:
“Dismissal with prejudice is warranted because plaintiff did not merely participate in a contentious or difficult deposition; she willfully obstructed the deposition, escalated the proceeding from verbal abuse to physical aggression, and assaulted defense counsel Brian Hayden.”
They added:
“That conduct was not merely rude, uncooperative and evasive. It was also deliberate, escalating, and physically aggressive conduct that brought the deposition to a necessary halt.”
Hammer, for her part, offered a blunt explanation for why she’s in court at all. She told the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project — which first broke the story — that the NRA simply stiffed her:
“They worked me to death and didn’t pay me. They promised to pay me and didn’t, so I am suing for payment. I have two lawsuits: one in Florida and one in Virginia. They cancelled my non-cancellable contract. I’m 87 years old.”
She also had choice words about the NRA attorney she allegedly targeted:
“He’s an attorney who can’t make a living, so he’s stayed with the NRA all these years. He hates me and he pushed it. I’m not doing well physically so they hope I will die soon and they won’t have to pay me.”
Hammer filed suit against the NRA on May 8, 2025, alleging the organization misappropriated her name, image, and likeness, and deposited a check intended for an NRA charity into its own account instead.
She served as the NRA’s first female president from 1995 to 1998. Beyond the Eddie Eagle program and Florida’s carry law, she spent decades as one of the most effective gun rights lobbyists in the country.
Whatever you think of the NRA’s current leadership or the messy internal politics that have defined the organization in recent years, watching one of the gun rights movement’s most accomplished figures end up in a courtroom fight with the organization she spent her career serving is a genuinely ugly thing to witness.
This story was originally reported by Lee Williams for the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project.