Date: Sun, 2 Apr 95 21:33 PDT
From: Clayton_Cramer@optilink.dsccc.com
To: firearms-alert@shell.portal.com
Subject: product review: Infoamerica's _Crime USA_


Infomerica's _Crime USA_ product

Let me say something nice about this product: its
presentation is very attractive.  It makes it very easy for
computer-illiterate user of Windows to display the 1991-1993
Uniform Crime Reports data by city or by college, in both
report and graph forms.  These graphs or reports can be
copied and pasted into other Windows applications.  The user
can painlessly request either his own custom list of cities
or colleges, or request, "Ten Worst" or "Ten Best" lists,
for the entire nation, or a particular state.  Custom lists
of cities can be saved as a group for later recall.  The
graphs and reports are useful, and the limitations of the
data are accurately described in the accompanying help text.

On the down side, graphs and charts can be copied and
pasted, but no other data!  This makes the product no more
useful to serious researchers than a printed copy of the
UCRs for 1991-1993.  This is such a serious handicap that I
am going to attempt return of the product.  Contrary to the
advertising for it, this product is shipped on floppies --
not a CD-ROM.  (CD-ROM products are pretty easy to return --
software on floppies, for obvious reasons, can't be.  I
suspect that I just flushed $49.95 down the toilet.)

Another negative about this product is that while it
contains some background information from the National Crime
Surveys, it doesn't contain any of the tables that appear in
the printed NCS reported -- only the occasional interesting
isolated data point.

While not heavy-handed, the materials related to guns
suggest excessive reliance on gun control groups, at the
expensive of accuracy.  Consider the following quote from
the discussion of "guns" under "Prevention Tips":

  However, guns kept in the house are 40 times more
  likely to be used against a family member than an
  intruder.

This is the familiar "43x" figure -- but misquoted as "used
against" instead "causing a death," and including all guns,
not just handguns.

Another more serious error is:

  Issuance of a permit to carry a concealed weapon is at
  the discretion of the police chief or sheriff of your
  community.  You must present facts that support your
  desire for such a permit.  Very few permits are issued.
  
Once again, someone has confused urban California with
the real world.

Not recommended.