Actually, what have guns got to do with someone deciding to end it all !
People don’t think “Oh, look’ there’s a gun, I’ll kill myself”.
Suicide is mainly because of emotional stress brought on by love life problems or financial or both or by bureaucratic bullying but not by guns.
To blame guns is as ignorant as those who blame others for their own stupidity !

Indy

Guns don’t cause people to decide to attempt suicide, but access to a gun makes it easier for them to act on that impulse, and more likely that they will succeed in the attempt.

According to one Australian study “the estimated mortality from self-shooting is 90%, from attempted hanging is 83% and from jumping from a height is 60%, whereas fewer than 3% of suicide attempts by self-poisoning or by sharp implement result in death.”

https://www.mja.com.au/journal/2010/192/8/suicide-australia-meta-analysis-rates-and-methods-suicide-between-1988-and-2007

Similar logic applies to your earlier comment. People who coldly plan premeditated murder may simply choose means other than guns to make the attempt, but using a gun is more likely to result in an actual murder, and much more likely to result in mass murders such as occurred at Christchurch and Port Arthur. Also, easy availability of guns is more likely to make a violent situation lethal or even result in accidental deaths.

https://www.annualreviews.org/doi/10.1146/annurev-criminol-061020-021528

Stringent gun control laws are most necessary, because when mistakes are made the results are catastrophic. The SSAA has always been keen to "arm the populace", and through its political affiliate the Shooters and Hooters Party seeks to water down our reasonable gun laws. Under the guise of "self defence" these ratbags would arm as many in the population as possible, with no regard for the general safety of the majority. Given their way they would enact American style gun laws in this country.

When things go wrong they can result in the most heinous of crimes. Take the case of John Edwards in 2018, while many more responsible outfits refused to train the deranged Edwards in the use of hand guns, the SSAA was quick to do so through their St Mary's Sydney shooting club. Not only did the SSAA train Edwards, they went on to arm him as well. Consequently Edwards was able to use that SSAA supplied gun to murder his two children Jack and Jennifer Edwards, in what police described as “premeditated and planned” murders. To this day there has not been any apology or act of contrition on the part of the SSAA for their involvement in this terrible crime.

I just googled Road fatalities vs gun related deaths in Australia. A lot of gun statistics showed but not a single comparison to road deaths.
Does anyone have those figures ? I agree that guns in the hands of deranged due to stress & indoctrination & a poor general mentality person can be & is a serious situation with tragic possibilities. Most bandwagon Academics & bureaucrats fall over each other in the rush to blame firearm owners when a gun incident occurs. What none of them are brave enough to do is to check their involvement in the cause of someone so stressed to ‘lose’ it ! When a family breaks up due to some insidious policy or legislation dreamed up by these hangers-on such as we perpetually hear about on current affairs programs about Councils, Centrelink, Veteran Affairs, Superannuation collapses, insane permit & registration fees, unaffordable insurance premiums etc etc etc the is their surprise real or feigned at a tragic incident ?
Most sane & decent folk get pushed way more than any bureaudroid. How many times do we hear of people in authority ‘losing’ it after one of their many stuff-ups ruining someone’s life ?
Thought so !

Indy

You can find details on all causes of death here:

https://www.abs.gov.au/statistics/health/causes-death/causes-death-australia/latest-release#australia-s-leading-causes-of-death-2021

I’m not sure what point you are trying to make, though. Most of us use motor vehicles several times a week, whereas most of use have little or no exposure to firearms from one year to the next. So of course the death rate from transport accidents is higher than from shooting incidents

Rhian wrote: "Yep, my mistake, I should have written 1996 and 1997 not 2006 and 2007."

Yep that would have been accurate as opposed to wrong. Equally you should have quoted data for 1996-7 instead of 2006-7 which would have also been accurate rather than wrong.

Still, we're getting there.

You might also like to look at this...
http://www.gunpolicy.org/firearms/compareyears/10/rate_of_gun_suicide

which shows that gun related suicide was falling for years prior to the gun buy-back scheme and, apart from a few bumps and jumps, continued to fall after the buy-back at a similar rate. That is, the buy-backs had no effect on the rate of a trend that was already in place.

This already established trend can also been seen here....

http://www.aihw.gov.au/getmedia/fd06f3d6-eac7-47d3-a187-4d0e0f188b27/20368-firearm-injuries-deaths.pdf.aspx?inline=true

So the conclusion is that suicides in general and gun related suicides in particular were already falling long before the buy-back and continued at a similar downward trend after. That is, the buy-backs had no effect on the rate of a trend that was already in place.

Most certainly the data shown that your original claim ( "But the data show that suicide rates in Australia dropped dramatically after we tightened gun laws, especially among men, reversing what had been an upwards trend.") isn't supported by the facts. I suspect you got this wrong because of mis-remembering when Howard's buy-back actually occurred.