...but my sense is that Slate is not deliberately padding their data with gun suicides.
A good feature of Slate's presentation is that for each of the 4411 gun deaths captured (another was added later today) there is a Source listed - that is, a URL for an online article or report on the circumstances of the death. A bad feature is that for each gun death there is a URL so if one wants to know how many deaths were, for example, suicides, you need to look at all the probably 300+ different URLs and scan for that information. Slate provides a spreadsheet with the data from which they build their graphic, so if one wanted to write a little code the process could be automated.
There are a couple on situations in which I know that 'suicides' have been included in the Slate data. First, Adam Lanza is listed among the deaths in Newtown - not unreasonable, he was killed by a gun, a gun he fired. Slate is reporting Gun Deaths SINCE Newtown, so Lanza, the other six adults, and the twenty children are not included in the 4411 number. However, there are other reports of multiple deaths where the shooter has committed suicide and that death is reported (for example, the 47 year old Grandmother who killed her 2 year old and 6 month old grandchildren in Connecticut accounts for 3 deaths). A second case in which a 'suicide' is reported is when a very young victim kills him/her self 'accidentally, for example, the 2 year old boy in Corsicana TX who found a gun and shot himself in the head earlier this month.
I think a judgment call is reasonable in assessing whether a 'remorse/escape suicide' after killing other people or an 'accidental suicide' by someone too young to make a decision to terminate their life is a suicide or just a gun death.
I think the gross numbers are also an indication (not a demonstration) that the Slate numbers aren't heavily loaded with gun suicide. Just a few days ago Pew Research had a report that for 2010 Suicides account for most gun deaths. They cite CDCP data for 2010 of 19,392 gun suicides and 12,928 other gun causes (of which gun homicides were 11,078). Other reports, such as from Huff Post, indicate Veteran suicides in general are increasing. The Slate data is tracking for approximately 9000 reported gun deaths - if many suicides were included I think that number would be much higher.
The facts about the number of suicides included in the Slate data is available in the data...but some work is required to extract it.
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