by Corey G. Johnson ProPublica is a Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative newsroom. Sign up for The Big Story newsletter to receive stories like this one in your inbox. For years, America’s most iconic gun-makers turned over sensitive personal information on hundreds of thousands of customers to political operatives. Those operatives, in turn, secretly employed the details to rally firearm owners to elect pro-gun politicians running for Congress and the White House, a ProPublica investigation has found. The clandestine sharing of gun buyers’ identities — without their knowledge and consent — marked a significant departure for an industry that has long prided itself on thwarting efforts to track who owns firearms in America. At least 10 gun industry businesses, including Glock, Smith & Wesson, Remington, Marlin and Mossberg, handed over names, addresses and other private data to the gun industry’s chief lobbying group, the National Shooting Sports Foundation.