THE

-definite article

(used with or as part of a title): the Duke of Wellington; the Reverend John Smith, the National Rifle Association.

Try saying it aloud..trust me, this helps...without using the initials but the full name.

"National Rifle Association had no choice but to review the facts of the case with regards to how much glory they could steal from other organizations..."

See how clumsy, how wrong, how BAD the English be? But more and more we see "NRA had no choice...yadda yadda"

Not to say that the NRA cannot be identified without the definite article, such as:

"NRA officials warned other 2nd Amendment specific institutions that they'd be stealing their thunder whenever possible."

So in summary; NRA is permissible, and THE NRA is also. 

Whatever the in-crowd says, plain ol' NRA doesn't always cut the mustard.

So for heavens sake stop being such a poser...ya'll know who you are...and reintroduce the English language as it is spoken by English speaking peoples.  

OR...stop bitching about having to dial "1" for English, "2" for Spanish, etc. Because soon there'll be a "3" for white-hip-hop-slanglish-that-makes-us-look-cool.

You don't dog. Look cool. Quite the contrary. It isn't any old Rifle Association. It's The National Rifle Association. Dog.