Is this a sign of what is coming for the rest of the nation? In Martin County, Kentucky times are very tough right now. Thanks to severe budget cutbacks, there are only two paid law enforcement officers covering a deeply impoverished 231-square-mile area that sits right in the heart of America’s raging opioid crisis. Needless to say, Martin County Sheriff John Kirk feels greatly outnumbered by the thieves, sexual predators and drug dealers that he has to contend with on a daily basis, and he recently issued a very ominous warning to the citizens of his county…

Before making a wave of cutbacks across his department, Martin County Sheriff John Kirk delivered a grim warning to residents of this hardscrabble Appalachian community. “Law enforcement as we have known for the last four years will not exist,” he posted on Facebook last month. “WE ARE BROKE… LOCK YOUR DOORS, LOAD YOUR GUNS AND GET YOU A BARKING, BITING DOG. If the Sheriff’s office can’t protect you, WHO WILL?”

So why can’t Martin County afford more law enforcement officers?

Well, like so many other local communities all across America right now, they are deep in debt and flat broke…

The county has accumulated $1.4 million in debt — a surprise to many of its new officials. “I don’t sleep well,” said Susan Hale, the county’s new treasurer, who is sifting through the bills left by the previous administration: $230,000 to a regional jail that houses its inmates, $140,000 to a state association that provides liability insurance, plus dribs and drabs for mundane items such as office supplies and toilet paper.

As economic conditions continue to deteriorate, we are going to hear a lot more stories like this all over the country.

And the truth is that things will ultimately be far worse in our major cities than in our rural areas.

Just take a look at Chicago. Today it is a war zone, and the growing poverty in the city has fueled the rapid growth of criminal gangs.

According to a study conducted at the University of Illinois at Chicago, approximately half of the city was considered to be “middle income” in 1970, but now that number has dropped to just 16 percent…

UIC’s maps show that fully half of the city was middle income in 1970, including large swaths on every side of town. Today, just 16 percent of the city’s 797 census tracts are considered middle income. Those middle income areas are confined mostly to the corners of the city, and to thin strips between areas of wealth and poverty.

Those numbers are absolutely staggering.

Right now, there are about 12,000 law enforcement officers and more than 100,000 gang members in the city of Chicago.

That means that the gang members outnumber the police by an almost 10 to 1 margin.

Things are not quite as bad in other major cities, but trouble is definitely brewing. For example, the murder rate in New York City is up 37 percent so far this year, and more gang members are moving in with each passing day.

Philadelphia has also seen the murder rate rise substantially, and this is something that Jim Quinn commented on in his most recent article…

Facts are always inconvenient to welfare state Democrats, but the ignorance of their constituents is what keeps them in power. The narrative of Philadelphia getting safer is obliterated by the 351 murders in 2018, up 43% since 2013, and the highest level since 2007. Assaults involving a gun totaled 2,327, up 13% since 2014. There were over 14,000 violent crimes and 63,000 robberies and thefts in 2018. The vast majority of these crimes occur in West and North Philadelphia, as local news stories lead with multiple murders and shootings every night (average of 4 shootings per day).

If things are this bad already, what are things going to look like when economic conditions get really bad?

We live at a time when Americans are becoming increasingly pessimistic. And even though economic conditions have been relatively stable in recent years, the combined national death rate from alcohol, drugs and suicide has been steadily rising…

Feelings of hopelessness and despair are overwhelming many in the U.S. So much so, that people are turning to alcohol, drugs, and suicide to numb the pain of their lives. Government enslavement and the stranglehold on the economy are making life even more difficult on those already struggling to get by. And this is seen in new death numbers released. The national rate for deaths from alcohol, drugs, and suicide rose from 43.9 to 46.6 deaths per 100,000 people in 2017, a 6 percent increase, the Trust for America’s Health and the Well Being Trust reported Tuesday. That was a slower increase than in the previous two years, but it was greater than the 4 percent average annual increase since 1999, reported USA Today.

The big reason why people are turning to alcohol, drugs and suicide to deal with the pain in their lives is because they don’t have any hope. And as this country continues to literally fall apart all around us, unfortunately a lot more Americans are likely to give in to anxiety, depression and despair.

If we want to turn this nation around, we need to act now.

Illegal immigration has been one of the biggest factors behind the explosive growth of gang violence in America, and a new report in the Washington Times is telling us that the number of people trying to come across our borders illegally is currently at an all-time record high…

Illegal immigration continues to break records on the southwestern border — and they’re not good ones. The number of families snared trying to sneak into the U.S. soared by 50 percent in one month alone, setting an all-time record with more than 36,000 family members apprehended, Homeland Security officials announced Tuesday. The government has also encountered some 70 groups of at least 100 migrants during the first five months of the fiscal year, shattering records and placing new challenges on Border Patrol agents.

Bad choices lead to bad consequences, and we have been making really bad choices for a very long time.

If we are not able to reverse course as a nation, you may want to take Sheriff Kirk’s advice and “lock your doors, load your guns and get you a barking, biting dog”…

About the author: Michael Snyder is a nationally-syndicated writer, media personality and political activist. He is the author of four books including Get Prepared Now, The Beginning Of The End and Living A Life That Really Matters. His articles are originally published on The Economic Collapse Blog, End Of The American Dream and The Most Important News. From there, his articles are republished on dozens of other prominent websites. If you would like to republish his articles, please feel free to do so. The more people that see this information the better, and we need to wake more people up while there is still time.