There's a huge amount of evidence that suicide is often an impulsive spur-of-the-moment choice. It's an irrevocable decision that is greatly influenced by having immediate access to the means. This is why bans on sales of large quantities of non-prescription pain-killers have had an effect on suicide rates, even if intuitively one would think it strange that someone decides not to take their own life simply because they'd have to make multiple visits to pharmacists to get a sufficient number of pills. But people pop them because they are there in the medicine cabinet at a moment of crisis. I think its obvious the same is true of guns.
Ergo it's not at all surprising that having a gun in the house increases suicide rates. It's not that surprising either that the presence of a gun is going to escalate domestic violence incidents.
The question is what one makes of those facts. I don't think suicide deaths are the same thing as murders. Morally they are different and the basis for state intervention to prevent them is very different. The state is allowed to go much further in protecting people from others than in protecting people from their own bad choices. (To me, banning the sale of pain-killers in large packs is reasonable, because it barely inconveniences the majority, banning their non-prescription sale entirely would not be)
An individual might respond that they will be safer with a gun, because they aren't ever going to be suicidal or get into a murderous rage with a member of their own family. I'm not sure you can apply these stats to individuals, but they surely do have relevance at the level of public health policy?
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