Trigger Warning: If you like Donald Trump or expect to read my latest travelogue you may not want to read any further.

“A lot of things are happening. There’s a tremendous feeling that we want to get something done.” -Donald Trump.

“Things are more like they are now then they have ever been before.”- Dwight D. Eisenhower.

“The man listened. He clearly was affected,” Rep. Jim Himes, D-Connecticut, said Thursday about the meeting in The White House.

“Now he has to choose between his patrons and his duty as president and the country. This is a really, really big political moment for him. … I think there are political consequences here,” David Axelrod.

“There was going to be a moment that only he could rise up as someone who is so strongly supportive of the Second Amendment and of the NRA. He can sit people down at the table on both sides of the issue and come to a compromise. -Michael Caputo, former Trump campaign senior advisor.

There are signs, however, that the President, who often boasts he saved the Second Amendment by winning the election, is searching for a middle way that satisfies demands for change but does not alienate his conservative base.- News Item.

“Listen, and understand!  It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop…” – Kyle Reese: “The Terminator.”

The only two statements above that contain any veracity is, the fictional one of Mr. Reese and the weirdest quote I’ve ever read from our 34th president. I’ve been pondering that quote since I first read it as a teen. For some strange reason, I find it profound despite its elusive meaning.

I’ve been subsumed by the most recent news about the latest school shooting and its aftermath. There seems to be a theme that this time “it’s different.” This time the outrage of the surviving students will be the difference. Or: This time, Trump, as the only one who could politically confront the NRA, will take some type of action. Or: This time, the outrage of yet another mass slaughter, by the American public, will be the difference. This time…

Sorry to disappoint. This time, like all the other “this times,” nothing is going to change. Trump and the NRA are counting on history. That is, the news cycle will carry on predictably.  Whether we all get distracted by the next outrage out of The White House or some other incident- domestic or international- the national media and public attention will move on quickly and we’ll all go back to “business as usual.”

The aforementioned quotes show how delusional, in a quaint, pollyannish way, people on both sides of the aisle are. Sorry Mr. Himes; the man doesn’t listen. He is clearly unaffected. Sorry Mr. Axelrod; he won’t choose between his patrons and his duty as president. Sorry Mr. Caputo; he won’t sit people down at the table on both sides of the issue and come to a compromise. Sorry, “news item;” he’s not “searching for a middle way.” And above all, sorry kids; when you go to school, any school, you just have to accept the fact that your campus may end up becoming a shooting gallery and you all are the targets. The “price of freedom” you understand.

Since none of this is about Trump, why would he waste even a nanosecond in his nanobrain on the subject, beyond what his daycare handlers say he needs to do, including having people over for a “listening” meeting. 

As I wrote in my previous blog, Trump is not a normal person. I believe the evidence is overwhelming and has been for many years: Donald Trump is a sociopath. Not in the casual sense but in the DSM 5 sense of the definition. Click on it and read it and decide for yourself.

Think about the fact he had to have a list of five things to remember to listen about in a meeting that was supposed to be about his listening to others. He actually needed to be reminded to listen at a meeting to listen. This is what a normal person has to do? And of course it was written by his day-care handlers and not by Trump. We know this is true because “I hear you” wasn’t spelled “Eye here U.”

He doesn’t care one whit about the deaths of those students or any other student. Afterall, what does any of this have to do with him? We all know, the only thing that concerns Trump, is Donald Trump. As a man who is absolutely void of basic empathy, he could care less about anyone’s suffering, unless it’s his own.

His actions really do seem less than human. He seems less than human. He’s all “Lizard Brain.”  If the monster in “Alien” were a little less murderous, it would be Trump. Still, a nasty, vile lifeform that is abjectly hostile to humans. “It can’t be bargained with. It can’t be reasoned with. It doesn’t feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop.”

When the dust settles (until the next mass shooting) nothing fundamental will change with gun laws in America. Not under Trump. There’s nothing in it for him. The man only cares about one thing: money. Either for himself, his family or his business associates. Nothing else matters. Least of all public school kids.

The only thing that could happen is some tinkering on the margins. You just have to look at what happended with “bump stocks.” Remember those from four years months ago? There wasn’t even a constituency feigning outrage over making them illegal but the uproard died down (as expected) and only now, there’s talk about doing something. Trump may get them banned and thus throw a sop to the public and everyone will be so thankful that some “progress” was made, after all.  Anyone else notice that bump stocks weren’t involved in the recent shooting, nor was one needed.

Golda Meir famously wrote in 1973: “Peace will come when the Arabs will love their children more than they hate us.”

We can update that for America: The slaughter in our schools will end when people value their children more than the right to own weapons of war.

Just don’t hold your breath.

Post Script: I’ve been thinking alot these last, almost, two years about the concept of “freedom” and what it means to “be free.” After all, the idea means something very different in China than in America. In the not too distant future, I shall write about how very different this simple notion is, between the two countries. I can say one thing, personally. I feel much “freer” here than I do in America. Spoiler alert: It has something to do with guns. “Watch this space…” (as always, h/t: Rachel Maddow)