MRIman:
Please tell me more on how to be an NRA member for $10 a year.
After being a member for 15 years,I said "NO" to all the begging
for money. When called by them one last time, I said "I'll rejoin if
you never send me mailers asking for money", they said "we can't do that"
Tell me how to help.yet not piss away the money
MRI
Of course I will tell you how to be an NRA member for only $10 a year, but only if you promise to keep that carefully guarded secret and not tell any other gun owner.
On the assumption that you have made that solemn promise,
look on the NRA's secret membership application form where it says "1 year Associate Membership" and then "$10.00" and then (no magazine)." This cryptic statement in the English language means "You can pay $10.00 to join the NRA as an Associate Member and not get a magazine." The NRA carefully hides its application form on the Internet so only the people who know that arcane search terms such as "NRA membership" will reveal it. No one expects people to look for themselves.
The approved method of getting such information is to complain loudly so that someone else tells you. That way you get to have principles while other people do
your work.
But you're already using the very best way not to "piss away the money" on the NRA. Don't join or don't renew your membership. Since you haven't been a member for a few years already, just multiply what you would have paid by the number of years you didn't pay it. That's your savings. Talk other people into not joining or renewing their NRA membership and you help them save money too. Play your cards right and eventually you might even save a bundle on the cost of ammunition: no guns and no ammunition means really big savings.
The only thing standing in the way of your getting those really big savings is people like me and others here who support the NRA. When you discourage enough people like me from carrying people like you, you get into the big bucks and save the maximum.
AZAndy:
Mr. Hairless, thank you for pointing out the difference between the NRA and the NRA-ILA. I was ignorant of that. By the way, I'm more bemused than "irate" about the mailings-- it just seemed wasteful to me, that's all. (And yes, I bought the $25 version because there was a discounted-price application in the box that contained a recently-purchased pistol-- should I have said "Heck no, I'm paying full price and you can't stop me?
In my defense, I should mention that I declined the magazine because I didn't want my feeble membership money wasted.)
Please don't misunderstand me or Linda, AndyAZ. I don't think either of us would be so presumptuous as to criticize you for being ignorant. You are a gun owner, you have opinions, and you not only have the
right to express your opinions but also the
duty to express them on every occasion. There is absolutely
no requirement that you need to know what you are talking about before you express your opinions. If there were such a requirement a lot of people wouldn't be able to express their opinions, which would make them feel frustrated and unhappy. No one wants that. It's why Linda almost certainly did not mean to imply that you were lazy as well as ignorant and opinionated by raising the same objection that others like you have raised--and continue to raise, and will continue to raise until the end of time--because they don't know what they're talking about. It gives the rest of us the opportunity to serve those people individually by typing roughly the same information over and over until the end of time. But none of us who do that really expects them to change their minds or their opinions. So Linda couldn't have possibly meant that as a relatively new member of an ongoing forum you had any obligation to check before wasting a lot of other people's time and spreading misinformation. You're important and we know it.
You asked "should I have said "Heck no, I'm paying full price and you can't stop me?
" Heck no. Only unsophisticated people do such things when they want to support an organization that fights for defense of a crucial right such as the Second Amendment right for the people to keep and bear arms.
My wife and I are among those unsophisticated people: we knew about the money saving ways to be NRA members but we consciously chose to pay full price instead. We, my wife and I, are also pretty stupid. Although we were of an age so that it would be a waste of money to become NRA Life Members instead of paying even the full price for NRA annual membership, we did it anyway. Our reasons for doing so were based on the main reason why we joined the NRA in the first place years ago: to support the
only national organization that stood between us and the overwhelming numbers of people who are determined to abolish a human right.
My wife and I are such idiots, by the way, that we have not based our decisions on the basis of what's good for us in our lifetimes. We are so old that the odds are against much of anything final--such as complete national gun confiscation--happening in the few years remaining to us. My guess is that you and others here are young enough so that you folks will suffer most damage. Nobody pays much attention to a couple of harmless little old people anyway. But we're so bone stupid that we feel an obligation not to stand by while the rights of our childrens', granchildrens', and great grandchildrens' generations are destroyed.
You can't get stupider than us. That's why we support the NRA.
I've also read the virtuous reasons why other people in this thread are not NRA members or have virtuously refused to renew their NRA memberships. They are good reasons, even great reasons. But any reason to not carry your share of the load is as good as any other reason, and I have a long list of other reasons not to belong to the NRA. They all begin "I did not renew my NRA membership because ...." You can create your own list of reasons by completing that statement. I haven't yet seen anyone use "I did not renew my NRA membership because my dog ate my homework," so that one is up for grabs. Really creative would be "I did not renew my NRA membership because the NRA did not stop the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius or the sinking of
H.M.S. Titanic."
But I have confidence in the creativity of gun owners who basically don't want to do their share and I wish they would use that creativity instead of rehashing the same old tripe.
You shamed me into getting off my duff! 
, as of all things a respected organization of "hunters", "concerned citizens" and "sportsmen"
