Controversial Actions and Statements:

In a January 7, 2024 interview with the Florida Current, Hammer was asked, “Do you think that ‘the people’ can remain ‘sovereign’ if a democratically elected government imposes strict regulations on gun ownerships?” Hammer replied, “No. Second Amendment rights are the means with which the people retain sovereignty. Give up your power to remain free and you are no longer free. Just because a government was ‘democratically’ elected does not mean it is a righteous government or that the electorate got the government they thought they were electing.”

In a December 28, 2023 op-ed for the Tallahassee Democrat, Hammer responded to an op-ed by Martin Dyckman, a retired associate editor of the newspaper formerly known as the St. Petersburg Times, in which he wrote that the NRA must reclaim its moderate voices. Hammer wrote, “The NRA never has been, and never will be, ‘moderate’ in its defense of the Second Amendment and freedom in America … When our constitutional rights came under threat from those like Dyckman who would disarm America, we took up the mission of protecting the Second Amendment, which is at the very heart of freedom and safety for the law-abiding … Instead of blaming poor parenting for producing gang-bangers, they blame guns.”

In July 2012, Hillsborough County Sheriff David Gee sent Hammer a three-page letter in response to a survey she had sent to sheriff candidates around the state of Florida on behalf of the NRA and the United Sportsmen of Florida. One question asked, “Would you support legislation to restrict or ban the lawful manufacture, sale, transfer, ownership or possession of firearms?” Gee responded with examples of how courts have restricted the Second Amendment; including a prohibition on felons possessing firearms. Gee stated, “Since I am legally and morally bound to follow the law as defined by the Supreme Court of the United States, I freely accept their decision.” The survey also stated, “Businesses have been using off-duty law enforcement officers—in their official uniforms—as private security and have been SEARCHING private vehicles that are parked in business parking lots." Gee objected to the question, stating that it implies that when an officer asks for permission to search a vehicle, that officer is being "inherently coercive." He wrote, “Courts allow these consent searches.” The Florida Sheriff's Association drafted its own response to Hammer's questionnaire, writing, “The Sheriffs in our state have long defended a citizen's right to keep and bear arms as outlined in the Second Amendment of the Constitution. However, the Sheriffs also have a duty to oppose legislation that would reduce public safety and place citizens and law enforcement officers at greater risk. It is unfortunate that some would view this common sense approach as being anti-Second Amendment, as this is far from our position as our history has shown."

During the 2011 legislative session, Hammer lobbied for a bill to force Florida’s cities and counties to repeal local rules regulating firearms that are stricter than state law. The legislation instituted fines for local officials who fail to comply, and gave gun owners a right to sue for damages if they believe their rights have been violated.

Municipal leaders stood in strong opposition to the bill. “This probably passed because of someone from the NRA, someone who doesn’t care about urban conditions,” said Aaron Campbell, vice mayor of Miami Gardens. “It’s sad that a piece of legislation can pass like this.” Elaine H. Black of the Liberty City Trust stated, “I’m concerned about some deranged person who doesn’t like what our government is doing coming in and shooting someone. If I can go now into the Miami Riverside Center, the main operating office of Miami, or any municipal building—and there’s always someone who’s walking into that door who’s not happy with government. Maybe you put a lien on my property, and I think that’s not right—I can walk in with a gun and shoot you.” The Florida League of Cities was concerned that the bill changed a longstanding common law practice of shielding elected and appointed officials from civil lawsuits relating to their job function.

Hammer dismissed these concerns, saying, “You’re not going to have every Tom, Dick and Harry carrying a firearm on their person up and down the streets and into buildings because it’s a felony [unless the person has a license to carry a concealed weapon].” When asked why it why it was OK for municipal leaders to beef up local laws on a host of other issues, such as where sex offenders can live, Hammer replied, “Sex offenders are not protected by the Constitution.” She added, “The right to keep and bear arms has Constitutional protection and ocal governments have been violating the Constitutional rights with no punishment.”

Hammer described elected officials who wish to regulate guns on the local level as “gun hating-Liberals.” “The legislature...made it clear in [1987] legislation that no future ordinances regulating firearms and ammunition could be adopted," she said. "And through that 24 years, there have been a number of counties that have arrogantly done it anyhow because there were no penalties in that bill.”

The legislation was signed into law by Republican Governor Rick Scott and went into effect on October 1, 2011.

During the 2011 legislative session in Florida, the Florida Sheriff’s Association opposed a bill that sought to allow people to openly carry firearms in public without storing them in safety holsters. Seminole Sheriff Don Eslinger, speaking on behalf of the association, testified that the legislation was a bad idea in a tourist state, and pointed out that visible weapons are ripe targets for thieves—especially if a gun isn't properly secured. "Many officers are killed with their own guns," Eslinger noted. "And keep in mind, these are skilled practitioners."

Hammer, who was the primary lobbyist for the bill, explained that an Open Carry law was needed because, “Silly as it may sound, if a license holder is carrying a concealed firearm and the wind blows open a jacket or a shirt exposing the firearm, the person can be charged with a crime for violating the Open Carry law ... This is Florida. It gets really hot here in the summer. A lot of times folks might go into a restaurant or into, you know, a meeting and they have on a suit with a coat and it’s hot and they want to take off their jacket, if they’re carrying in a shoulder holster or in a pants holster they can’t take a jacket off and expose the firearm because then they would be violating the Open Carry law." She was unable to provide any specific examples of permit holders being arrested for such violations.

Speaking about opponents of the bill, Hammer said, "Open Carry was one of those things that we lost here in Florida when we passed concealed carry because the gun haters said that carrying openly would scare people so we ended up with Open Carry being banned in Florida 24 years ago ... claim that everybody’s going to strap a holster on and a gun on their hip and walk up and down Main Street. Well, that’s nonsense, that’s nothing more than emotional hysterics designed to try to kill a bill.”

When she was asked about the Florida sheriffs who lobbied against Open Carry, Hammer accused them of "bullying" legislators and said, "a lot of 'em are [anti-gun radicals]." "In my 34 years, I’ve not seen anything this egregious," Hammer added.

Republican Governor Rick Scott eventually signed a watered-down version of the bill into law on June 17, 2011.

Hammer was the primary lobbyist for a bill introduced in the Florida state legislature in January 2011 that sought to force the state’s colleges and universities to allow guns on campus. Under SB 234, anyone with a concealed handgun permit recognized by Florida would have been able to carry a loaded gun onto a college campus—including into classrooms and dormitories.

The bill was introduced just days after Florida State University sophomore Ashley Cowie, 20, was accidentally shot and killed at a fraternity party by fellow student Ryan Wilhelm, who discharged his semiautomatic AK-74 assault rifle while showing it off. Wilhelm had a blood alcohol level of approximately .10 at the time of the shooting and had also been smoking marijuana.

Commenting about the shooting, Hammer emphasized it happened off-campus in a fraternity house where guns are banned. “With shootings on campus, they are essentially a gun-free zone and in a gun-free zone the good guys don’t have a chance,” she said.

When asked why SB 234 was necessary, Hammer replied, “There’s a lot of safety by allowing guns on campus. That’s how a lot of us protect ourselves because law enforcement can’t be there when we need them. Law enforcement is not stopping rapes on campus, and not stopping a lot of crimes ... "Nothing about a university or college campus should take away an individual's right of self-defense."”

In response to those who questioned the wisdom of arming young people in an academic environment often characterized by stress and heated debate, Hammer made the following argument: “In order to qualify for a license, a person has to be 21 years of age or older. We’re not talking about teenage freshmen or underclassmen, so folks shouldn’t let anybody put that false image in your head However, we need to remember that this country asks 18 year olds to go to war and die for this country but we don’t let ‘em carry firearms until they’re 21 years of age or older and the reality is when we do let ‘em carry, we currently are denying that right if they decide to go to college and get a better education and make a better life for themselves.”

The police chiefs of Florida’s states universities came out in unanimous opposition to SB 234. The Florida Police Chiefs Association also opposed SB 234.

SB 234 was amended to remove the guns on campus provision on March 9, 2023 after Dr. Robert Cowie—the father of slain student Ashley Cowie and a registered Republican—testified against the bill in front of the Senate Florida Criminal Justice Committee. “Allowing guns in an atmosphere of college parties puts everyone involved at increased and undue risk,” he told committee members. "I challenge anyone present today in this room who is a parent—or for that matter any voter in this state that is a parent—to come forward to meet me eye to eye and comfort me with the thought that our campuses will be better and safer places if the possession of firearms is permitted by anyone other than a law enforcement officer ... If you wish to see further evidence of what a weapon on campuses can do, I invite you to attend my daughter's memorial service. " After the bill was amended, Dr. Cowie commented, “If my making a statement would possibly prevent another family from going through what we did, I knew I'd make the effort. I think Ashley would be proud of me."

While lobbying for legislation that sought to ban adoption agencies from asking would-be parents questions about firearms ownership, Hammer claimed that any request about gun ownership from an agency connected with government was tantamount to establishing a private gun registry. “Gun registration is illegal in Florida,” said Hammer. “An adoption agency has no right to subvert the privacy rights of gun owners.'' Hammer never specified exactly how gun owners’ rights would be subverted either by questions about gun ownership or registration.

During the 2007 legislative session, a bill was introduced in the Florida state legislature to prevent private businesses from prohibiting employees from keeping guns locked in their cars in company parking lots. While lobbying for the bill, Hammer commented to the Associated Press: “[Private businesses] ought to be tickled to death for getting immunity from things that are happening in their parking lots. This bill codifies longstanding public policy and constitutional guarantees. It could not be simpler.” She did not provide an explanation, however, of where in the Second Amendment a right to take guns to one’s workplace is granted. Hammer also added, Big corporations want property rights for themselves but not for their customers or employees. “This bill is about people. And people are more important than a chunk of asphalt in a parking lot.”

Mark Wilson, the vice president of the Florida Chamber of Commerce, had a different take on the legislation, saying, “This is the biggest assault on private property rights and the employer-employee relationship that this Legislature has ever heard ... Some of our members are dumbfounded that you can be smart enough to be in the legislature and still consider this bill seriously.”

In April 2007, a survey was released by Tel Opinion Research. The survey indicated that “80% of Floridians [thought] businesses and homeowners should decide what things are brought onto their property” and “56%...said business owners should be able to expressly bar their workers from having guns in the vehicles.”

During the 2006 legislative session in Florida, Hammer lobbied for a bill that sought to create a public records exemption for concealed handgun permits and rejected permit applications—thereby barring Florida residents from knowing which individuals in their communities had obtained permits, and preventing them from independently auditing the permitting process to ensure public safety. When the legislation was signed into law by then-Florida Governor Jeb Bush in June 2006, Barbara Petersen, the president of the Florida First Amendment Foundation, commented, “I think this exemption makes a mockery of the constitutional right of access. The stated purpose of this bill is protect sensitive information. What is sensitive about your name? These are a privileged class of people who are allowed to carry a concealed weapon. They have to jump through some hoops. [But] we have absolutely no opportunity for oversight.” [Source: Palm Beach Post, “Bush Signs Gun-Related Bills into Law,” June 8, 2023]

Hammer was the primary lobbyist behind a “Castle Doctrine/Stand Your Ground” bill that aimed to eliminate Florida’s common law duty to use every reasonable means available to retreat from a conflict prior to using deadly force, which the state's Supreme Court had legitimized by explaining, “Human life is precious, and deadly combat should be avoided if at all possible when imminent danger to oneself can be avoided.” The bill, SB 436, stated that any individual who is in a place where he/she has a legal right to be, and who is “not engaged in an unlawful activity...has the right to stand his or her ground and meet force with force, including deadly force, if he or she reasonably believes it is necessary to do so to prevent death or great bodily harm to himself or herself or another or to prevent the commission of a forcible felony.” Individuals using lethal force in this manner were to be granted immunity from both criminal prosecution and civil lawsuits. Critics labeled SB 436 “Shoot First” legislation.

Hammer explained her reason for pushing the bill as follows: “Through time, in this country, what I like to call bleeding heart criminal coddlers want you to give a criminal an even break, so that when you're attacked, you're supposed to turn around and run, rather than standing your ground and protecting yourself and your family and your property. [I] started thinking then that the day will come when we will have to do some serious thinking about changing this … Taking away the rights of law-abiding people and putting them in jeopardy of being prosecuted and then sued by criminals who were injured when they were committing crimes against victims is wrong.”

She also claimed that during hurricane seasons in Florida, “In a lot of these devastated areas, law enforcement would tell communities, ‘You're on your own, we can't get to you.’ So, we needed to be sure that when people protected themselves, their families and their property, that they weren't gonna be prosecuted by some criminal coddling prosecutor.” Responding to criticism that the "Stand Your Ground" law could be invoked by the perpetrators of violent crime to avoid criminal prosecution, Hammer stated, "We saw a parade of hypotheticals by those who opposed this... What's important is the message it sends, and that's, 'don't attack me.'"

Furthermore, Hammer was unable to produce even a single example of a law-abiding gun owner being prosecuted for using a firearm for legitimate self-defense in the home prior to 2005.

Among those who opposed the “Stand Your Ground” bill were the National District Attorneys Association, the Florida Prosecuting Attorneys Association, and police chiefs from cities including Miami and St. Petersburg. Palm Beach State Attorney Barry Krischer commented, “I dislike the law because it encourages people to stand their ground…when they could just as easily walk away. To me, that’s not a civilized society.” Paul Logli, president of the National District Attorneys Association, pointed out that the law “give[s] citizens more rights to use deadly force than we give police officers, and with less review.”

Regarding these concerns posed by critics of the legislation, Hammer said, “It’s nothing but emotional hysterics … Those who like to ban guns attempted to say that this law would allow street gangs because they were legally in the street.”

The Castle Doctrine bill was signed into law on April 26, 2023 by Republican Governor Jeb Bush.

Jeannie Suk, a professor at Harvard Law School, published an analysis of Florida’s Castle Doctrine law and has described it in the following terms: “There is an important change in this law. Even the traditional castle doctrine, which was very protective of people in their homes, and allowed them to shoot in their home without retreating, it still meant that you had to be reasonably afraid of death or serious bodily harm. This was a very important requirement. You don't just let people kill in self-defense and say, oh, you were afraid of being attacked. You actually have to show that your fear was reasonable. And now…you don't have to do that because you don't have to prove that in court. But more importantly, even before the trial stage, what happens is that police officers and prosecutors, it affects their decisions about whether to bring cases, whether to make arrests or to bring a prosecution. I think it's a very big deal.” Duval County State Attorney Harry Shorstein has cited “a lesser sensitivity to gun violence and death” after the law was passed.

The New York Times and others have identified numerous cases of questionable (and unnecessary) homicides where shooters invoked the Castle Doctrine defense. A 2011 analysis by the South Florida Sun Sentinel found that “several…accused murderers have successfully used [Florida’s] 2005 ‘Stand Your Ground’ law to prove they were the real victims.” Bradford Cohen, the president of the Broward County chapter of the Florida Association of Criminal Defense Attorneys, has described the law as “one more tool we can use.”