Neurotransmitters are highly conserved across taxa

Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness (2012)
http://fcmconference.org/img/CambridgeDeclarationOnConsciousness.pdf 

"An international group of prominent scientists has signed The Cambridge Declaration on Consciousness in which they are proclaiming their support for the idea that animals are conscious and aware to the degree that humans are — a list of animals that includes all mammals, birds, and even the octopus. But will this make us stop treating these animals in totally inhumane ways?" http://io9.gizmodo.com/5937356/prominent-scientists-sign-declaration-that-animals-have-conscious-awareness-just-like-us

An interesting Christain Identity video

The Christian Identity movement (a facsimile of a FBI backrounder on them is here) is a shared ideology across most of the spectrum of the ultra-far right in the United States. 
The recent Planned Parenthood shooter was apparently a fan of these folks, the Oklahoma Federal Building bombing folks were adherents, etc. 
These folks are farther to the right than the Dominionists (which lacks a racial aspect to their belief system), and farther to the right than most elected Republican office holders.
 I recently stumbled across a Christian Identity video for non-members.

OK, i do not like trigger warnings, but i will do one on this link.

Trigger Warning: 
This video was prepared by white male supremacists. It is  or may be offensive to Most "whites", Non-Christians, LGBT folks, any person of color, women and most mainline Christians.
   
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ph7zKSblzo

At around minute 30 +-, they depict the persecution of "rescuers" at abortion clinics. 
The video is chock full of faux-history and a certain weirdness, but worth watching for a look into the mind of some folks. I guess...

From a Friend on Facebook

The Price is Right*

Another “mass shooting" in the United States.

These are kind of a cultural and media feature I guess. I think if American satirist Ambrose Bierce wrote The Devils Dictionary today, his definition for “Gun Control” would  be; Something Americans talk about after a mass shooting.

I have already opined on potential avenues of remediation of the problem.

http://airwaterground.blogspot.com/2014/10/the-new-duck-and-cover.html

And I have a piece out there on the legal/cultural history of The Gun Thing in the U.S.

So no sense in rehashing all that. Besides, it is, outside of areas of war, civil war, failed states, terrorism, etc. kind of an American thing.

For me, the interesting question is why do we put up with this shit? Why the socio-political paralysis on the gun violence thing? 

A speculation.

Maybe people (meaning the majority of Americans not motivated by the NRA brand or that did not fail the President Obama Rorschach Test)
just do not care unless it touches close to home, so to speak?
 The research in recent times about empathy & compassion may point to this. Maybe it is now just another aspect of our mediaverse-newstainment-entertainment flow? The problem is too socially complex and remote for most folks to get jazzed up about. Yet.

* “We shall shortly institute

A syncopation of fear

While it's painful, it will suit

Many customers whose appetites are queer

And the price is right,

The cost of one admission is your mind.”