Stolen gun portal aims to help recover firearms

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Feb. 2 announced the creation of the Ohio Stolen Gun Portal.

Ohio Attorney General Dave Yost on Feb. 2 announced the creation of the Ohio Stolen Gun Portal, a searchable website designed to increase public safety by helping to identify and recover stolen firearms.

The online tool “aims to protect buyers and traders from purchasing a stolen gun and to facilitate the return of stolen firearms to their rightful owners,” according to the Attorney General’s Office.

The Stolen Gun Portal consists of a database, including serial numbers. The data is complied from law enforcement agencies throughout Ohio and reported to the Law Enforcement Automated Data System, or LEADS. LEADS is administered by the Ohio Department of Public Safety, which authorized the release of that data to the public and connected it with the portal.

“With our new portal, when buying a used firearm, private citizens and firearms dealers can instantly check to see whether a gun was previously reported as stolen,” Yost said in a statement. “This is a tool for gun buyers and law enforcement alike that will lead to the recovery of stolen firearms and serve as a deterrent for criminals seeking to make a quick buck.”

When a member of the public or a firearms dealer logs a serial number into the portal, the database searches for a match, according to the Attorney General’s Office. If the database returns a match, the user is directed to notify the law enforcement agency that originally reported the firearm stolen.

“We are pleased to have partnered with Attorney General Yost and his team to develop this incredibly important public database,” Ohio Department of Public

Safety Director Tom Stickrath said in a statement. “We know that most gun violence is committed by convicted felons who are prohibited from possessing a weapon. Far too many people are dying, and this new resource is vital to public safety.”

The portal is designed to update every 24 hours to add the latest reports on stolen firearms and to remove information on guns that have been recovered, according to the Ohio Attorney General’s Office.

According to the website, data will be updated nightly between 11 and 11:20 p.m. The Attorney General’s Office “strongly recommends that you do not search during this time, as the system could return inaccurate or incomplete results, while files are being processed.