I’m a C&R 03 FFL holder, and have occasionally used it for acquiring various C&R firearms. For the most part, though, I don’t use it for anything except discounts at the occasional online retailer.
The ATF, however, must not have any sort of internal differentiation between 01 (normal “gun shops”) and 03 FFLs, and so sends C&R holders all the same material that they send to dealers. In the past, this has included an annual copy of all the federal and state laws relating to the purchase and ownership of firearms, published in book form. These books are Not Small: combined thickness is about 2″.
Well, I guess the ATF realized that sending out big, heavy books is a pain in the butt, so they’re now mailing out CD-ROMs.
I suppose this could be a useful point in gun policy debates: “There are so many federal and state laws regulating firearms in the US that it became too expensive for the government to print them and mail them to gun dealers and licensed collectors, so they’re putting them on CD-ROM now. You say we need more?”
That said, I rather like the CD-ROM — it’s considerably smaller than the gigantic books.