Indiana’s entrenched reputation as an easy place for a criminal to get a gun is mortifying.

Even worse are laws aimed at hiding information that allows the public to know where guns used in crimes are bought.

Don’s Guns and Galleries in Indianapolis has one of the worst records for selling crime guns. A Washington Post investigation found that Don’s Guns sold 1,910 guns that were later traced back to a crime over the last four years. Don’s Guns ranked third in the nation for a dealer selling crime guns, not the first time it has earned a top spot on the shameful list.

Only 1 percent of the nation’s gun dealers supply more than 57 percent of the guns traced to crimes. About 89 percent of licensed gun dealers in the country have no crime guns traced back to them.

“Weak federal gun laws allow corrupt gun dealers to flood thousands of guns into the illegal gun market,” Paul Helmke, president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said in a statement. “We must strengthen law enforcement’s ability to crack down on the dealers who profit from so many gun sales to criminals.”

According to the Brady Center, the number of crime guns sold by these dealers is most likely much higher because not all guns recovered from crimes are traced to the dealer who sold them.

The Washington Post investigation is the first report of its kind since the Brady Center issued “Trading in Death,” based on similar records, in 2004. The Brady Center hasn’t released an updated report because the information is now withheld from the public.

Before the crime gun data were hidden, a report from the now-defunct Americans for Gun Safety ranked Don’s Guns as second in the nation for selling crime guns. Between 1996 and 2000, Don’s Guns sold 2,294 crime guns.

There is no legitimate reason citizens should not know which dealers are selling guns that help criminals. In 2003, the gun-rights lobby successfully pushed the requirement to keep the database, paid for with tax dollars and containing the gun-tracking information, secret from the public.

Unfortunately, this year, Indiana legislators adopted a similarly wrongheaded piece of legislation that eliminates public access to state-issued permits to carry handguns. The law came after the Indianapolis Star disclosed how many permits were wrongly issued to convicted felons or issued to people against the recommendations of local police chiefs and sheriffs.

Rather than address the problem, Indiana legislators voted to hide the information reported in the story.