More than 700 people have asked the D.C. police for licenses to carry loaded concealed handguns when they dine, shop and walk the streets of the nation’s capital. In the months since a court ordered city officials to scale back local gun-control laws, police department records show that more than half the applicants are not District residents.

The loosening of the law marks a cultural shift in a city where most residents could not legally keep handguns in their homes until a landmark Supreme Court decision a decade ago. City officials have long fought efforts to chip away at the District’s strict controls since the high court used a local case in 2008 to declare that an individual has a right to gun ownership.