Hi everyone,

I'm new to the forum. I need some help with research design. I divided my study into four parts... result of each should fall into the other. But I'm having trouble with defining what method I need to use to evaluate my data (statistically). To give some background - I'm studying intelligence/criminal analysis.

Part 1 - Are the types of weapons and targets of terrorist attacks changing? (I have the data for this, and will have a summary statistic that shows the fluctuations from 1992-2014).

Part 2 - What is the distribution of sales of weapons in 1992-2014? ----> This is where I'm stuck. I want to relate the fact that civilians probably buy more weapons right after there was a). terrorist attack, and more likely after terrorists themselves used a wpn (not a vehicle, or a bomb) and b). civilian sales will increase right after random attack targeting civilians (as opposed to target of government, media, etc.)

I chose 5-6 small arms producers, and can get sales data on them per year... but I'm not sure how to do this in terms of showing a significant relationship..
Any ideas, or examples of similar research designs?

My supervisor has not responded yet, and I don't really want to waste time.

Thank you!