Over the course of over a year, a team of investigative reporters dug deep into local data to find that across the country, police recovered more than tens of thousands of stolen firearms, the vast majority of which were later connected to crimes including carjackings and kidnappings, armed robberies, sexual assaults, and murders. Using public records, they were able to tell the story behind these stolen guns with a level of detail that had never been done. Here’s how.