TargetTalk

For those of you who are annual members, or have been a member before, but might want to join, the NRA has a life member special right now. Ordinarily it is a thousand bucks, but right now you can get a life membership for 300 dollars.

Call 888-678-7894

Thanks for the info! I've been a regular member for years and have been wanting to upgrade to life member but couldn't bring myself to spend the $1,000. Just upgraded for $300 and it only took about two minutes.

Thanks,
Ted

tedbell wrote:Thanks for the info! I've been a regular member for years and have been wanting to upgrade to life member but couldn't bring myself to spend the $1,000. Just upgraded for $300 and it only took about two minutes.

Thanks,
Ted

Ted, I paid off mine, and bought a life membership for my son, and also another friend I shoot with. They will both pay me back over the next few months, but what a deal.

I think I paid 2 or 3 hundred for mine back in the early seventies. So $300 is a great deal considering what that would buy back then.

Thanks for the heads up. I was about to renew for 2 years, now for $300 I'm a member for life.

I became a life member in the mid 1950's and if memory serves, it was less than $100-glad I did. :-)

Call me a cynic but, with that good a deal, it sounds like they are urgently trying to build up a "fighting fund".

Having said that, I wish our associations in the UK offerred that sort of deal. I've just paid £80 for a year :-(

Actually their political money does not come from membership dues.[/code]

Richard H wrote:Actually their political money does not come from membership dues.[/code]

where does it come from?

I am a longtime Life Member (Benefactor level). I upgraded to Endowment while they were still on Rhode Island Ave in DC. My name is on the wall on the plaque in the Fairfax HQ's as an Endowment member. I upgraded the other levels at various NRA Conventions that I attended through the years.

I am also a member of USA Shooting.

The NRA is padding the numbers. All NRA members please look into calling the membership dept and getting put on either the Restricted mailings (I am on this) or the No Promotions list. I might receive one solicitation every two years. I used to get upset at the constant pandering for more.

I hope that they do not digitize The American Rifleman as they did with Shooting Sports USA. I can only imagine the pages being flooded with more and more advertising and less and less content. These cheap life memberships can not be self sustaining. For the record, an American Rifleman from the 1950's or 1960's was some darn good reading. The match schedules and results bulletins were in them as well as darn good gunsmithing articles and advertisements.

The NRA, like many large corporations has different divisions, for legal reasons, and other considerations.

The NRA proper has the official journals and various programs, i.e. Training Div, Competiton Div, Rifle Dept, etc.

Then there is the NRA Foundation, the charitable arm that is a 501C3 tax exempt program.

The NRAILA is the legal/political arm.

Thedrifter wrote:

Richard H wrote:Actually their political money does not come from membership dues.[/code]

where does it come from?

The NRA derives the huge bulk of its money from manufacturers, importers, and distributors in the general "sporting" industry. I wonder how much of the cash goes out in the directions of executive salaries, supporting a not exactly modest headquarters building and the expenses necessary to rub shoulders with the high and mighty of the Washington establishment.

Didn't the NRA have to give up its position as National Governing Body for international shooting because of its deep political involvement?

visitor wrote:

Thedrifter wrote:

Richard H wrote:Actually their political money does not come from membership dues.[/code]

where does it come from?

The NRA derives the huge bulk of its money from manufacturers, importers, and distributors in the general "sporting" industry. I wonder how much of the cash goes out in the directions of executive salaries, supporting a not exactly modest headquarters building and the expenses necessary to rub shoulders with the high and mighty of the Washington establishment.

Didn't the NRA have to give up its position as National Governing Body for international shooting because of its deep political involvement?

From what I understand, USA Shooting was forced to split off from the NRA by the IOC (international Olympic committee) It really was a shame. I know a number of NRA shooters who would shoot international events, if their NRA memberships still covered them. Participation in international events has suffered because of it. The USA shooting matches are way more expensive than most the NRA ones, and generally much farther to travel, for less shooting.

From what I understand, USA Shooting was forced to split off from the NRA by the IOC (international Olympic committee) It really was a shame. I know a number of NRA shooters who would shoot international events, if their NRA memberships still covered them. Participation in international events has suffered because of it. The USA shooting matches are way more expensive than most the NRA ones, and generally much farther to travel, for less shooting.

That's one way to look at it. Another is that NRA had to choose between shooters (competition) and politics, and they made their choice. I'll bet nobody at USAShooting bothers to dream of having Wayne LaPierre's political contacts... or his expense account.

During the previous AWB fight the NRA basically dropped their NGB responsibilities with little warning. As stated earlier they made a choice.

There was no USA Shooting back then. USA Shooting was a volunteer organization assembled to hurriedly fill the vaccuum. A lot of people remember this and still hold a bit of a grudge, myself included.

The kids still suffer because of these dual national sanctioning bodies with duplication of effort. Both sanctioning bodies currently honor each other's training credentials. The folks that started USA Shooting came out of the NRA originally, afterall.

sbrmike wrote:During the previous AWB fight the NRA basically dropped their NGB responsibilities with little warning. As stated earlier they made a choice.

There was no USA Shooting back then. USA Shooting was a volunteer organization assembled to hurriedly fill the vaccuum. A lot of people remember this and still hold a bit of a grudge, myself included.

The kids still suffer because of these dual national sanctioning bodies with duplication of effort. Both sanctioning bodies currently honor each other's training credentials. The folks that started USA Shooting came out of the NRA originally, afterall.

Dropped, or was forced? I some how, I find it hard to believe they decided to drop only the UIT/ISSF disciplines considering the other NRA administered disciplines like bullseye pistol, high power rifle, action pistol, etc, kept on running like clockwork. Even today, it's a lot easier to find an NRA sanctioned discipline (except maybe action pistol) than a USA Shooting sanction discipline at the local level. NRA has done a much better job with grassroots local shooting matches which USAS has abandoned to focus almost exclusively on collegiate shooters and those on the national teams.

As for NRA's revenues, visitor is WRONG. NRA does NOT get the bulk of its money from "manufacturers, importers, and distributors in the general "sporting" industry," at least not as donations to act as a spokesman for the industry (that's the National Sports Shooting Foundation's job...a separate, unrelated entity). The various arms of the NRA get a lot of their money from several revenue streams including donations from people, especially estate donations where lots of folks basically write the NRA into their wills. NRA also gets some money from membership dues, some from fees it charges for consulting on range construction and other issues, and lots from various NRA licensing fees...want an official NRA coffee mug or gun case? Part of what you pay will go to the NRA.

Not sure what the need is to "wonder" where their money comes from. You are obviously on the Internet go look.

sparky wrote:Dropped, or was forced? I some how, I find it hard to believe they decided to drop only the UIT/ISSF disciplines considering the other NRA administered disciplines like bullseye pistol, high power rifle, action pistol, etc, kept on running like clockwork. Even today, it's a lot easier to find an NRA sanctioned discipline (except maybe action pistol) than a USA Shooting sanction discipline at the local level. NRA has done a much better job with grassroots local shooting matches which USAS has abandoned to focus almost exclusively on collegiate shooters and those on the national teams.

A bit of both. For about a decade earlier, there had been disputes between the NRA leadership and the ISSF shooters about money. There were allegations that funds were being raised using the Olympic shooters as a justification, then used for everything BUT the Olympic events. All this came to a head once around 1988, then really came to a head in 1994, IIRC. It was to the point where the top ISSF competitors were asking the USOC to intervene.

Mike M. (as guest) wrote:

sparky wrote:Dropped, or was forced? I some how, I find it hard to believe they decided to drop only the UIT/ISSF disciplines considering the other NRA administered disciplines like bullseye pistol, high power rifle, action pistol, etc, kept on running like clockwork. Even today, it's a lot easier to find an NRA sanctioned discipline (except maybe action pistol) than a USA Shooting sanction discipline at the local level. NRA has done a much better job with grassroots local shooting matches which USAS has abandoned to focus almost exclusively on collegiate shooters and those on the national teams.

A bit of both. For about a decade earlier, there had been disputes between the NRA leadership and the ISSF shooters about money. There were allegations that funds were being raised using the Olympic shooters as a justification, then used for everything BUT the Olympic events. All this came to a head once around 1988, then really came to a head in 1994, IIRC. It was to the point where the top ISSF competitors were asking the USOC to intervene.

Yep, and like many other situations, it was out of the fryng pan, into the fire, when those same shooters discovered that USA Shooting is just as good at putting money into overhead, and administration as the NRA was.

I stand with Chose. They chose to not be under someone else's rules, the IOC. They chose not to fix the problem. They chose to abandon their NGB responsibilities to focus on the AWB of 1994.

I am not positive but can't remember if they chose to still administer the NCAA side of things or not. I don't remember if they decided to keep that responsibility or not. I am not up on the collegiate nuts and bolts.