A past president of the National Rifle Association has taken out loans totaling more than $250,000, at an interest rate as low as 2 percent, from the NRA’s Florida affiliate, a nonprofit that she has led for decades and that employs only her, according to the organization’s tax filings.
Marion Hammer, executive director of the Unified Sportsmen of Florida, which receives most of its budget from the NRA, took out the loans to refinance or purchase homes, according to the tax filings. Since 1995, when Hammer began borrowing money, she has bought or helped buy several properties in Tallahassee — including one where a daughter resides and another where a granddaughter resides, property and other records show.
The disclosure of the below-market interest rate granted to Hammer, an NRA board member who is one of the nation’s leading gun lobbyists, comes as the organization is being battered by reports of economic benefits flowing to its top leadership. Those reports have fueled internal warfare at the nation’s most powerful gun lobby as well as investigations by the Democratic attorneys general of the District and New York.