I spent 20 years in high level retained executive search (6 and 7 figure comp pkgs. with multi million dollar differed comp plans) and I am a believer in getting what you pay for.(most of the time) The NRA is a big and complex organization, which spans many segments of industry and lobby. If you found an exec to run this in a totally non gov't/non political arena, you'd likely be paying even more for the top few... and the "golden parachute" (also called golden handcuffs by search consultants) is common as well.
Even if the top 5 execs made a $1M/yr, that's less than $1/yr per member... which is a small price to pay for good and competent leadership.
