Suicides not impacted by 'gun control' laws

It is only the last decade or two when those who want a disarmed population in the West have started to stress "suicide" as a reason for disarming the population. The early pushes for population disarmament were predicated on the excuse of reducing violent crime, particularly homicides. The actual motivation had nothing to do with crime. The original motivation was to reduce armed rivals. In New York, to reduce armed resistance to organized crime, particularly the Tammany Gang. In England, to reduce armed support for a potential revolution. Originally, the push was to eliminate handguns from almost all the population. There was some talk of accidents, but suicides were almost never mentioned.

As 'gun control' policies were implemented in various countries, it became clear violent crime and homicides were not reduced by 'gun control'. The push to ban handguns in the United States had failed, and those pushing for citizen disarmament moved on to semi-automatic rifles. The famous quote by Josh Sugarman of the Violence Policy Center was near the start of this phase. This push did not depend on homicide or violent crime for its existence. Semi-automatic rifles are seldom used in violent crime. Rather it is the similarity in appearance to military firearms which is used, under the pretext that military firearms are not useful to the ordinary citizen, and most citizens are not familiar with them. From the Violence Policy Center, 1988:

...handgun restriction is simply not viewed as a priority. Assault weapons—just like armor-piercing bullets, machine guns, and plastic firearms—are a new topic. The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons—anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun—can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons. In addition, few people can envision a practical use for these weapons. .....