Ballistics is the analysis of projectile weapons like bullets and cannonballs. It is basically how bullets work. It could be very useful in describing the way someone was murdered. Guns have been around for a while now so I expected to see some mention in all decades. I expect it to be more prevalent in the 80’s and in the 90’s because it was then that it was really starting to be a type of credible crime research method. In the beginning of the time frame, I expect it to be mentioned the most frequently because of the war that ravaged the world in the 1940’s-1960’s. For those three decades, I expect a lot of mention more than any other bar up until the 2000’s where it will jump because of CSI.

Her are my results:

Figure 11. This is a screenshot taken by my MacBook Pro of the Time Magazine Corpus Text Mine of “Ballistics”.

Ballistics were mentioned in the early 1920’s and increased in the 30’s. I could attest that to the World War I. It decreased in the 40’s, but it increased in the 50’s at the height of the Vietnam War. It slightly decreased in usage from 18 to 12 hits in the span of those 10 years. In the 70’s and the 80’s, it increases to 13 and 14 respectively. It is probably because of the war on drugs that was happening at that time. It decreases in the 90’s. It could be because of the prevalence of the amount of music that was taking over the world at this time. Time Magazine had a lot to talk about at this time. I imagined in the new millennium it increases and probably because of CSI. I assume that would be the reason. CSI is the issue I’m talking about. Let’s see how many people talk about that.

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