No amount of firearm education and training, registration and restriction or licensing of people will prevent them from killing themselves if that is what they are determined to do. Rather than blaming firearms, which currently account for one in six suicides, the community needs to direct effort towards remedying the circumstances which drive a person to suicide. These include such known factors as not having a job or financial security, not having successful relationships and not having a future to work towards. Again, available resources ought to be expended in the identification and amelioration of real root causes rather than the current futile focus upon method selection. As with homicides, clearly firearms are not the problem and they never have been.
Suicide is the problem.
The only question of any significance is why. In relation to suicide, questions of gun legislation are in reality almost irrelevant. If a firearm is not available then clearly, as numerous domestic and international studies demonstrate, an alternative method will be substituted. Suicide is a reality and in Australia continues to be a major issue which will not be remedied by focusing upon one of the methods less frequently used. It is time the governments of Australia addressed the causes of unacceptable levels of suicide and stopped playing with band-aids.