[DanBC]

(i'm having problems with tone. I apologise for previous tone and am grateful to you for not getting sucked in.)

About increasing rates: coroners are much more likely to report a death as suicide now than they used to. It doesn't have the same levels of social stigma. Suicide needs a different level of proof ("beyond reasonable doubt", not "balance of probabilities") - these two factors led to under-recording of suicide in national statistics. National statistics started using reports of "death by misadventure" and open verdicts.

Here's a link about English coroner verdicts: http://www.inquest.org.uk/help/handbook/section-4-3-verdicts

Socio-economic factors are also important. We know that when unemployment rises the number of attempted and completed suicides rise. Rates of unemployment for young men are very much high now than they were 45 years ago.

And while some medication has got more restrictive others have got more permissive. It's easier to get opiate style pain relief now.

Point 3:

People have a preferred method of suicide. A person who considers death by overdose may not want to die by gun. People's thinking about suicide is distorted. People might think they want a "serene" death, or they might want a certain death, or a very quick death. So removing access to guns will see some people transferring to other methods. At the moment we seem to disagree about the numbers.