Pistol-packin' member-elect: Lauren Boebert opts for do-it-yourself security in high-crime D.C.

Colorado Republican Congresswoman-elect Lauren Boebert plans to carry a gun with her while she works in the nation's capital, citing Washington, D.C.'s violent crime danger.

A restaurant owner and staunch defender of the Second Amendment, Boebert plans to protect herself by providing her own security.

Even in a year with widespread pandemic-related shutdowns in the city, homicides have risen roughly 20% over 2019, and the violent crime rate is 158% higher than the national average, Boebert said in an interview on "Just the News AM."

"I don't go to work in an armored vehicle, I don't have a police escort," Boebert told show host Carrie Sheffield. "I am my security ... I need a way to protect myself. We are grateful for our law enforcement officers, but I can't count on them to be there every second of the day."

Boebert says she has gone through the required concealed carry courses for D.C., has gone out shooting and is now awaiting the arrival of her permit, which she hopes to receive before she is sworn in on Jan. 3.

"It's really funny how the same group of people who have been shouting 'Defund the police!' all year now want me to rely on police officers for my safety if I were to be in imminent danger —you can't have it both ways," said Boebert, attributing the rise in new gun owners to the calls for police defunding.