The District of Columbia may be the hub for the government, but it’s also a city with a whole lot of people living there. Sure, the biggest industry in town is the government, but it’s still a major city.

Like any other major city, crime is a continuing problem.

To combat that, D.C. enacted some of the most draconian gun laws in the nation, including the laws overturned in the Heller decision.

Not all that long ago, the city found itself in court again, this time over its concealed carry requirements. It opted not to take the case to the Supreme Court, though, because it didn’t want to lose again and completely revamp concealed carry in this country.

Now, the one-time restrictive city is now a shall-issue jurisdiction, and people are taking advantage of it.

The number of Washington D.C. concealed carry permit holders skyrocketed a little over 1440 percent since the District lost a key legal battle related to its previous restrictive gun permitting process at the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia last year.

The Metropolitan Police Department confirmed to The Daily Caller Tuesday that 1,896 concealed carry permits were issued by MPD for the calendar year to date 2018.

MPD noted that several hundred approvals came from applications submitted in late 2017. These were included in the current 2018 approval number, which is why the total number of 2018 applications for DC concealed carry permits to date is 1508 — a number lower than the 2018 approval number.

Prior the court ruling, according to The Washington Post, only 123 people had active D.C. concealed carry permits and MPD previously denied 77 percent of applicants for not providing the once-mandated “good reason” to carry.

The new numbers of people wanting D.C. carry permits continue to rise as House Democrats announced last week their caucus will aggressively push for more gun control measures in the new Congress, where they will have a majority.

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Once known for its decades-long handgun ban, D.C. went from being “may issue” to “shall issue” when it came to issuing its concealed carry permits, so attaining the permit through the District’s mandate of in-class hours and on range requirements along with MPD’s extensive criminal background check became more of a reality for private citizens across the country.

I’m honestly not surprised D.C. saw that big of a jump.

My time in D.C. has been centered around the more touristy places such as the Mall area. I’ve seen the Capitol, the White House, the Supreme Court, the Smithsonian, all that jazz. That’s all most people see.

But like any other city, there’s a lot of ugliness at work too. There’s a shady underbelly to any city, and D.C. is no exception. That underbelly often rears its head and strikes out at decent men and women who just want to go about their lives in peace. Up until the court decision, though, these men and women had no means to protect themselves from such instances.

Now, they do, so is it any surprise that so many of them are getting their permits? Not a bit.