Worthless stats is worthless.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_suicide_rate
US rates 30th on successful suicide rates per capita. That's 29 other countries ahead of us and pretty much ALL those 29 countries have far stricter gun ownership laws.
A person using a gun to commit suicide the first time is far more likely to be successful. That isn't an item of argument. The point being is a gun the most effective method of suicide? That is what seems to be an argument danced around here, but with 29 countries with far more suicides in both per capita relationship AND in sheer raw numbers begs to argue a completely different point. That guns are not the most effective means to suicide.
The problem with many other means of suicide is that if they aren't successful they leave the person physically and mentally far worse off than they were before the attempt. Usually physically or mentally impaired which tends to make people more determined to finish what they started in the first place.
Unsuccessful gun suicides also leave permanent physical and sometimes mental impairment as well.
Guns are mainly a highly talked about side issue when it comes to suicides both successful and unsuccessful. Who cares about the tool used for the suicide attempt, but why the attempt was made in the first place. That should be the real discussion on suicides and guns shouldn't even be mentioned.
But without mentioning guns for suicide deaths in this country, anti-gun ownership people in this country don't have as much to argue for. Homicide rates based on guns is fairly low and usually done in very small horrible places in our country. When factoring out the ghettos and other bad inner city areas, homicide deaths by guns are very low and far out classed by other means. Deaths as a whole as attributed to gun violence is very low compared to just about any other cause of death in this country.
As for defensive uses of guns, it is very hard to figure if impossible. I've had friends who've had to defend themselves, property, or family with a gun. Sometimes the defense was just to deter another person, many times around here it is to stop a feral hog or coyote. None of which will ever be reported for any sort of tracking purposes. Nor would many of the gun owning country people around here be at all inclined to answer any such study question if asked based on my experience of the people around here that own a gun for their ranch/farm.