Taking Aim at Suicide Guns

Eugene Volokh blogs on this letter sent to Senator Feinstein urging her to strengthen laws against some types of assault weapons. For some reason Professor Volokh leads his post with “National Organization for Women wants to ban about half of all handguns,” even though NOW was one of 40 or so groups to sign it. I guess NOW gets more of a rise out of readers than New Mexico Voices for Children.
Anyway, I was scanning the list when I came across an organization I’m unfamiliar with: the American Association of Suicidology. Unfortunately, their web site is presently down, so I can’t get any further than what Google offers. Apparently, as the name suggests, it’s a group that “promotes suicide prevention and a better understanding of suicidal people.”
Presumably this organization is involved in a gun issue because guns are used in suicides. But what about this legislation? Even if they are successful, is prohibiting assualt weapons really going to have a notable impact on the number of suicides? To one contemplating suicide, does it make a tremendous difference which type of gun he or she may have available? Is there a class of people who will attempt suicide only if they get their hands on an “assault” weapon? Could the availability of a semiautomatic versus a non-semiautomatic weapon be the dispositive factor in a number of self-inflicted deaths?
I doubt it.