It could work. Now that they can't defend themselves, it will be the criminals that take their lives, not themselves.
However, on a more serious note, this clearly isn't about suicide. You don't need a gun to commit suicide. There are so many methods out there and all equally effective since the target is not trying to evade being ended. For example, and not trying to give people ideas but, running a hose from your exhaust pipe into the cabin of your car. Or jumping off a bridge. If someone wants to end themselves, they don't need a gun to do it. Common house hold items will do the trick. On the other hand, if you need to defend yourself from crazed criminals or the government, guns are the ultimate equalizer.
Just because they can pull a statistic and say X number of people committed suicide using guns each year does not mean that if you took the guns away from those people they wouldn't have put in the effort to use some other method. It is very likely that these people only used a gun because it was the easiest method they had on hand at the time. And they can't presume to prove they wouldn't have done it if they had no guns available, because you can't survey dead people to ask them: "If you didn't have a gun available to you, would you have not bothered to commit suicide?".
It could work. Now that they can't defend themselves, it will be the criminals that take their lives, not themselves.
However, on a more serious note, this clearly isn't about suicide. You don't need a gun to commit suicide. There are so many methods out there and all equally effective since the target is not trying to evade being ended. For example, and not trying to give people ideas but, running a hose from your exhaust pipe into the cabin of your car. Or jumping off a bridge. If someone wants to end themselves, they don't need a gun to do it. Common house hold items will do the trick. On the other hand, if you need to defend yourself from crazed criminals or the government, guns are the ultimate equalizer.
Just because they can pull a statistic and say X number of people committed suicide using guns each year does not mean that if you took the guns away from those people they wouldn't have put in the effort to use some other method. It is very likely that these people only used a gun because it was the easiest method they had on hand at the time. And they can't presume to prove they wouldn't have done it if they had no guns available, because you can't survey dead people to ask them: "If you didn't have a gun available to you, would you have not bothered to commit suicide?".