Judge King: Gun Decision Unlikely to Affect Caseload

Lawyers across the country have already begun speculating about what Thursday’s Supreme Court decision that struck down the District’s gun ban will mean. But in the District, Rufus King III, chief judge of the D.C. Superior Court, says he doesn’t expect the decision to have much impact on the Superior Court's caseload.

King notes that if some people knowingly broke the law when a full-fledged ban was in place, it makes little sense to think they now would go through the trouble to file for gun licenses if the District’s government makes them available.

“The city is still going to want to regulate guns on the street, so they will come up with a law that determines who can get a license and where and when you can have one. That all has to be sorted out,” King says. “The courts don’t have any role in choosing that policy. My role is to interpret and follow the law. Anything other than that is beyond my pay grade.”