What do we think about when we think about guns? For most Stanford students, a few simple words probably spring to mind. Words that denote towns or schools, but connote terrifying acts of mass violence. Columbine. Virginia Tech. Aurora. Newtown. Understandably, we fixate on such national disasters not only because they are highly publicized, but also because we fear a similar incident happening on our campus. Few of us have reason to own or regularly come in contact with guns (indeed, because of the misguided Gun-Free School Zone Act of 1995, California students are prohibited from having guns on campus). Many Stanford students will never see their lives directly affected by a gun unless The Farm becomes the site of a school shooting. When it comes to gun violence, then, school shootings seem most immediate, most concerning, most frightening.

They shouldn’t.

Real violence is happening in our backyard, right now. Unfortunately, it largely escapes our notice. Recently, five people were shot in a gang-related incident in East Palo Alto – once given the moniker “murder capital of the United States.” A six-year-old girl, caught in the crossfire, ended up in the hospital. Gang violence is a more pressing issue than random mass shootings; the latter only receive a disproportionate amount of attention because their infrequent nature makes them charged, arresting news stories.

Few Stanford students have been exposed to the harshest realities plaguing other young adults. (Indeed, fully one half of Stanford students do not receive need-based financial aid from the university, indicating that their families make above $200,000 a year.) Unfortunately, the Stanford bubble so effectively isolates most of us from gang violence and its effects that we fail to consider those whom gun violence most impacts, those who live in the gang-infested inner cities of the US, those whose deaths rarely make the news because they are not considered unusual, random, or noteworthy. In 2010, gang-related gun violence accounted for about 20% of all US homicides, despite gang members constituting only about 0.25% of the US population. Gang violence is one of the major factors driving our country’s homicide rates higher than those of other developed nations.

One of the major strategies to reduce gang violence has been the implementation of stricter gun control measures. Indeed, Chicago – which last year saw 500 murders, more than the countries of Australia, Saudi Arabia, and Jordan combined over the same time period – has some of the harshest gun control laws on the books. Concealed carry is completely illegal throughout the city, and open carry is illegal in the majority of cases. Chicago’s obscene murder rate makes it clear that these harsh gun control measures aren’t working. People still carry guns. Gang members who are not legally allowed to own firearms? They own firearms. If they cared about obeying the law, they wouldn’t be in gangs.

This situation essentially leaves law enforcement officers with two options: give up, or crack down harder on those who illegally acquire firearms. The former option does not solve anything. If laws are not going to be enforced, what’s the point in enacting them? The second option, however, would have some negative consequences that many liberals who casually advocate gun control as a fix-all solution would be well advised to contemplate.

Unfortunately, the criminal justice system exhibits prejudice against people of color. While there are certainly fair and unprejudiced police officers, attorneys, judges, and jurors, racism is not dead.  Both unintentional and intentional racism make the system as a whole unfavorable toward people of color. Black and Latino people are incarcerated at much higher rates than white people are. According to the Department of Justice, black individuals have a six times higher chance of ever being incarcerated than white people, and Latinos have a four times higher chance than white people. One out of every three black men will spend some time in prison in his lifetime. The police are four times as likely to use force against a black person as against a white person. Black men are also twice as likely as white men to be arrested; when sentenced, they receive longer sentences. Arrests related to the War on Drugs disproportionately affect black people. According to the FBI, between 1980 and 2007 – the last year for which data were available – black Americans were arrested for drug-related crimes at rates 2.8 to 5.5 times higher than white Americans.  However, a survey by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services found that between 2002 and 2010 black Americans used illicit drugs at rates only approximately 1.4 times higher than white Americans. The same survey found that black adolescents dealt drugs at rates about 1.2 times higher than their white peers (data for adults was unavailable). The evidence strongly suggests that black people are being arrested at rates disproportionate to the rates at which they commit drug-related crimes.

Unfortunately, the recent political clamor arising primarily from the left for a similar “War on Guns” will only continue to disadvantage people of color. As the above statistics indicate, the War on Drugs has disproportionately targeted black and Latino Americans. There is little reason to believe a “War on Guns” would not do the same.

Eighty-eight percent of gang members are people of color. Attempting to crack down on gang violence by implementing stricter gun control laws— and by subsequently enforcing those laws —is going to put even more young black and Latino men in jail.

That shouldn’t be anyone’s goal.

In particular, the left – historically concerned with the plight of disadvantaged members of our society – needs to carefully examine the unintended consequences of gun control. Liberals champion both social justice causes but also increased restrictions on gun ownership. However, these two goals are at odds. We cannot fight institutionalized racism by giving more power to those same institutions that exhibit racism. But harsher gun control laws will necessarily give more power to our government – an institution that, however inadvertently, exhibits racism.

If we want to reduce gun violence, the answer is not gun control. Gun control is a seductive approach because it suggests we can solve the problem of gang violence simply by writing a few laws. This is patently false. If anything, gun control will worsen gang violence by further disadvantaging people of color.

Gun control is attempting to put a Band-Aid on a structural problem in our society. If you fight skin cancer with make-up, you’re going to die. Guns are a symptom of the issue, not the issue itself. We don’t reduce gang violence – and consequently America’s gun-related homicide rate – by limiting access to guns. We reduce gang violence by limiting gangs.

Of course, it’s a lot harder to improve conditions in the inner cities than it is to pass gun control legislation. We could start with a massive overhaul of the education system, which would include ensuring schools in low-income neighborhoods receive as much funding as those in wealthy suburbs. We could start by at least considering some other ways to increase access to high-quality education, perhaps by reducing the power of teachers’ unions or investing in preschool programs. We could start by focusing our efforts on ways to make the illegal drug trade less lucrative, one of which could be legalizing drugs. We could at the very least start thinking about these issues, begin a national conversation on them, encourage scholars to research them. We could discuss ways to reduce the appeal of gangs. We could fund studies on how to revitalize struggling neighborhoods. We could tackle these deep-rooted problems head-on, cognizant of the enormity of the task ahead of us, but also aware of the tremendous benefits to be reaped by devoting our energies to these issues. We could stop pretending that gun control will solve the major structural issues facing our society. We could protect the right of all Americans, guaranteed in the Constitution, to own firearms.

Liberals need to re-evaluate their fervent support of gun control in light of its negative consequences for minorities. We all want to reduce the US homicide rate. But gun control is not the answer.

Miriam Pollock is the Opinions Editor for the Review. She can be reached at mpollock@stanford.edu.

The setting: A “clinic reeked of animal urine, courtesy of the cats that were allowed to roam (and defecate) freely.  Furniture and blankets…stained with blood.  Instruments…not properly sterilized.  Disposable medical supplies…not disposed of, [instead] reused, over and over again. The emergency exit was padlocked shut.”

“Among the relatively few cases that could be specifically documented, one was Baby A. His 17-year-old mother was almost 30 weeks pregnant – seven and a half months—when labor was induced. An employee estimated his birth weight as approaching six pounds. He was breathing and moving when Dr. Gosnell severed his spine and put the body in a plastic shoebox for disposal. The doctor joked that this baby was so big he could “walk me to the bus stop.” Another, Baby Boy B, whose body was found at the clinic frozen in a one-gallon spring-water bottle, was at least 28 weeks of gestational age when he was killed. Baby C was moving and breathing for 20 minutes before an assistant came in and cut the spinal cord, just the way she had seen Gosnell do it so many times.”

Graphic excerpts from a horror novel? If only. The above are excerpts from a 2011 Report of the Grand Jury to the First Judicial District of Pennsylvania’s Criminal Trial Division. On Monday, May 13, Philadelphia abortionist, Kermit Gosnell, was convicted for the first-degree murder of three infants born alive during abortion procedures.  He was also convicted on one count of infanticide, the involuntary manslaughter of patient Karnamaya Mongar, and 208 violations of informed-consent law.

To make matters worse, however, media coverage of what many are saying have the elements of “the trial of the century,” was scandalously scarce.  And on a campus that boasts a rather strong activist culture, I heard nothing but silence with regards to the Gosnell murders.

The trials, which began in April, reveal a media section with only one journalist present, reflecting that what would otherwise be an event of national significance was ignored by the (broadly speaking) liberal media.   David Weigel from Slate attributes the lack of reporting to an existing media “bubble” that remains impervious to more socially conservative causes.  In an April 12 piece, he stated:

“Let’s just state the obvious: National political reporters are, by and large, socially liberal. We are more likely to know a gay couple than to know someone who owns an “assault weapon.” We are, generally, pro-choice…There is a bubble. Horror stories of abortionists are less likely to permeate that bubble than, say, a story about a right-wing pundit attacking an abortionist who then claims to have gotten death threats.”

Never mind that Karnamaya Mongar, an underprivileged Nepalese refugee, was made to sign forms, which, according to the grand-jury report, she could not even read prior to having “received repeated unmonitored, unrecorded intravenous injections of Demerol, a sedative seldom used in recent years because of its dangers.”  Never mind that Gosnell did not give her the same level of attention that he did to a more privileged white woman, which he justified by saying it was “the way of the world.” Never mind that his lack of attention resulted in her death despite paramedics’ efforts to revive her.  The Gosnell trials reek of problems deemed not only classically conservative, but liberal as well.

But the root of the problem lies not along ideological lines, with pro-life, anti-Gosnell conservatives pitted against pro-choice, Gosnell-indifferent liberals, as many have chosen to describe this debacle.  Rather, one of the underlying causes of the disappointing lack of public outrage with the Gosnell murders is our general under-appreciation of motherhood.

What exactly do I mean? Our societal appreciation for women has indeed increased in recent decades with women advancing in business, the sciences, in government and politics, etc.  But our appreciation for women is incomplete in the sense that while we promote increased opportunities for women, we fail to promote her natural fertility, her motherhood.  For example, we talk about balancing work and family—particularly for women—as if the two are necessarily incompatible.  Sarah Elizabeth Richards of the Wall Street Journal recently published an op-ed entitled, “Why I Froze My Eggs and You Should Too,” arguing that “the ability to control when we have children” is perhaps “the most powerful gender equalizer,” especially “amid all the talk of ‘leaning in’ and ‘having it all.’”  This presupposes an attitude that motherhood prevents the equality of genders, as if motherhood inhibits women from achieving fulfillment in society.

We provide abortion on-demand, framing it as an issue of choice, when in fact, for many women, it has become their only choice amidst a lack of a supportive environment in which they feel they can raise children.

With regards to the Gosnell murders, in addition to asking the question, “How could we have allowed Gosnell to kill these babies and harm these women?” perhaps we should also be asking, “Why are these women going to Gosnell in the first place?” What are the institutions that drove hundreds of women every year to Gosnell for abortions at the sixth or seventh month of pregnancy? Why did they feel that this man and his “house of horrors” was their only option to avoid carrying their pregnancies to term? Why did they feel that they could not be the mothers of the children they were carrying?

I write this in the days following Mother’s Day, a day we have set aside to celebrate the women our lives who have made so many sacrifices for our well-being.  Let us extend the appreciation we give to them on this day into our everyday lives.  Only then will we be able to appreciate mothers not just in theory, but in practice, and the victims of men like Kermit Gosnell will be fewer in number.

Our funding system for student groups is broken. This past year, over half a million dollars budgeted to student groups went unspent. That means nearly one fifth of the total funds budgeted –$2.5 million–was not used. Ostensibly every dollar allocated by the ASSU must go toward a particular item in the budgets submitted by student groups. But on average, 20 cents of every dollar allocated was not used, and therefore, not pressingly needed. Doling out unnecessary funds, coupled with the fact that we pay more than many of our peer institutions, suggests we have a serious problem to address.

The problem is not so much that student groups don’t know how to write accurate budgets. That’s certainly true, but also understandable.  For one, many students don’t have experience in this area, and the workshops offered to train Financial Officers – in the experience of Review board members – were woefully inadequate. More broadly, there is an obvious structural flaw in the system: groups must submit budgets a full year before they actually use the money they request. Most recently, VSOs submitted budgets to the ASSU last quarter, but those budgets will only come into effect fall, winter and spring of next year. Even the most experienced budget-maker cannot claim clairvoyance: who knows what particular logistical needs will be relevant week 4 of spring quarter, next year? Student groups cannot possibly be expected to create accurate budgets so far in advance of actually using the money.

The real problem, however, is how we address this built-in structural flaw. Our current policy amounts to little more than turning a blind eye. As of now, all unused funds get channeled into student groups’ reserve fund at the end of the school year. And in following years, groups can draw on their reserves with far more discretion than the funding available from normal budgets.

This system is problematic for many reasons.

For one, outgoing seniors who pay for student groups out of their own tuition, do not see the benefits of the money they paid, nor are they refunded this money.

Second, the rules that constrain the normal budgetary process– which are largely sensible–do not apply to reserve funding.

Normally, student groups must request specific funds for specific purposes. They are given accounts–such as “event food” of “travel fare” — to cover the specific costs of programming, and the funds allocated to a certain account cannot be used to cover expenses of another kind. This makes sense. We don’t give student groups lump sums to use wantonly – we want to know they have a specific plan in mind, and largely stick to their plan. Drawing from reserve funds circumvents this constraint. Pools of money originally allocated for event food can be used for any other purposes, if the Undergraduate Senate, an elected body, approves requests for the use of reserve funds.  In practice, however, such requests are generally approved. In effect, there is little force to demand that money be used for certain purposes, an insufficient way to hold students accountable to their original requests.

Thirdly, and perhaps most importantly, reserve funding allows groups to circumvent the democratic process that determines how much funding groups get in the first place. When students vote on special fee budgets, they vote on allocation of money into particular accounts. Robust reserve accounts allow groups to distribute funding without the direct consent of the student body that we normally require.

The student body, for example, might vote for a group to have enough funding for event food. They might not approve, however, of using their tuition for group member salaries. Under the current system, there is minimal protection against the possibility of such abuses.

Admittedly, not much money is at stake here, especially compared to how much we give Stanford overall. But the issue is this: there’s an apparatus to legitimize how we support student groups, and it’s broken. We should fix it, because it’s easy to do so, and because it’ll make the apparatus actually legitimate.

The editorial board of the Review proposes the following, easy solution; at the end of the school year, the ASSU should take unused funds out of student group accounts. The most immediate effect of this policy will be to incentivize– student groups to operate more efficiently–they should only request funds they strictly need, and should not feel like there is no penalty for failing to use the money students chose to pay for programming on campus. Beyond changing the incentive structure for groups, the unused money could be put to better use than is currently being done. First, it could be refunded to students, particularly outgoing students. Second, it could be allotted to the Senate or the Executive, more so than any one particular student group.  The former represent the entire student body, so from a democratic perspective, their discretion is more acceptable than that of any one particular group.

We acknowledge that there are objections to the above proposed solution.  First of all, one could argue that without reserve funds, groups would be constricted from spending money for unforeseen circumstances. Secondly, our proposed solution might incentivize student groups to spend all their leftover money in ways not necessarily beneficial to the student body. Our proposed solution, however, is indeed a step in the right direction towards greater accountability and transparency on the part of student groups.  As always, we hardly claim to exhaust the detailed scope of this issue; more to raise it as a topic of discussion and urge our peers to demand more efficiency in how our money is spent.

Equality under the law has been a fundamental tenet of American governance since this nation’s inception. A Civil War was fought to advance this ideal and thousands took to the streets to demand it. Reformers used this notion to justify their causes to the American public, knowing it would resonate. Today we still strive to ensure that all citizens are treated equally by their government. The Constitution enshrines this goal: Congress must impose uniform taxes, the First Amendment protects free speech, the Fourteenth Amendment protects equality under the law, and the Fifteenth and Nineteenth Amendments uphold the right to vote regardless of race or gender. Equality under the law is paramount to the United States and, since 2010, the Internal Revenue Service has used its substantial authority to thrash this principle.

On Tuesday, May 14th, the Treasury Department Inspector General reported that the IRS, in violation of its mandate to apply tax law fairly, disproportionately flagged groups with “Tea Party” in their names, groups that addressed government spending, and groups that had statements that “criticize how the country is run” for review. These organizations’ requests for tax-exempt status were often significantly delayed with additional questions that extended far beyond the IRS’s purview.

Many conservatives claim that the Obama Administration encouraged the IRS to target conservative groups. Recent evidence has surfaced illustrating that senior White House staffers knew of the IRS’s practices earlier than they previously stated.  Others defend the IRS, arguing that the Supreme Court’s 2010 Citizens United ruling on political activity forced the IRS to cope with increased applications and overworked personnel by screening for conservative groups. After all, most new applications were from right-leaning groups.. A mistake, yes, but not diabolical. Both sides have valid interpretations but they miss the point. The fact that some in the one of the government’s most powerful agencies disregarded one of America’s most sacrosanct principles, whether for political reasons or efficiency, should create outrage regardless of why it happened. The true media firestorm should be there, not in a political game of scandal and response.

The IRS is the sole body that can transfer wealth generated in the marketplace by hardworking individuals, whether CEOs or factory workers, to the government. The agency has the authority to shutter any business, bankrupt any political group, damage any charity. It is absolutely vital that an organization with such power promote uniform treatment. There is a reason that the IRS is designed to be as independent as possible: Americans may disagree about many things including taxation but those issues are resolved through the political sphere. The IRS is charged with enforcing the law, not creating it or interpreting it. This incident undermines the critical belief that, despite differences over a law’s creation, its application will be uniform. If the Obama Administration is found to have interfered in the IRS’s review process, then the consequences should be severe. If, on the other hand, the IRS resorted to such inappropriate tactics to cope with limited staff, then Congress should promptly allocate more funds to the IRS rendering specific timesaving targeting unnecessary.

The IRS scandal explains why it is so important to limit government power and, when government is necessary, to subject it to rigorous checks and balances. The philosopher David Hume wrote how, when designing government, “every man ought to be supposed a knave.” Our political institutions are not designed based on trust, they are built upon inherent mistrust. A government agency that grows too powerful such as the IRS is not subjected to forces that would prevent abuses such as the current scandal. How can the IRS be trusted to implement the Affordable Care Act in a manner consistent with equality under the law when it cannot even do so with its present mandate? Whether the targeting was politically motivated or not, the IRS scandal illustrates the importance of preserving the belief that the government applies law uniformly. Only a limited government with strong checks and balances can prevent agencies such as the IRS from having the power to target certain groups, political or otherwise. The IRS’s recent behavior should not divide us; it should unite us in outrage because our belief that we should all be treated equally under the law was threatened.

Former Libertarian presidential candidate and Governor of New Mexico Gary Johnson lives his party’s philosophy of maximum freedom balanced with self-ownership. “The Libertarian Party is for all who don’t want to push other people around and don’t want to be pushed around themselves,” says the party’s website. Nobody would dare to push Johnson around—the five-time Ironman triathlete and Mount Everest climber already pushes himself further than most of us can imagine pushing ourselves.

While a well-known part of his platform is the legalization of marijuana and a more “European” approach to hard drugs, Johnson chooses to abstain from smoking, drinking alcohol, and using drugs recreationally. “[They are] an incredible handicap,” said Johnson in an interview with Slow Twitch Magazine, “but not for a minute do I think [they] should be criminal.”

Libertarian philosophy dictates that “each individual has the right to control his or her own body, action, speech, and property” and, with that right, the individual is responsible for his or her choices. Johnson’s lifestyle is consistent with these principles. His extreme hobbies—including 140-mile triathlons, climbing the tallest mountains in the world, and paragliding—keep him in fantastic shape, but, at the same time, he knows the risks of his choices and takes responsibility for their consequences.

In 2005, a serious paragliding crash left him with a fractured vertebra, six broken ribs, damage to the meniscus discs in both of his knees, a torn ACL, and pain in his shoulders, hip, and neck, and in 2003, he nearly died while descending Everest. “We’re at the top. Huge crash of ice, and under oath I would have testified that things were moving. It turns out nothing was moving, but there was a giant, giant crash. It felt like things were moving, and we thought we were going to die, and the crash stops, and minutes pass, and we’re still there and we scramble off of it and move on and nothing happens. But for two minutes, that was a very real two minutes that, holy shit,” Johnson said.

Johnson has climbed four of the famous Seven Summits, the highest peaks on each continent. “Three more to go,” he said in an interview with BQ during his run for president. He pondered whether it would be feasible to cross one or two more off his list during his term if he became present. “But I’ll still be young enough—67, 68—when I leave office to do the other three.”

When Stanford recently announced its lowest ever admissions rate of 5.69 percent, members of the Review’s editorial board noticed many of our peers reacting with jubilation on Facebook.

“Heck Yeah Stanny!!!!” one student declared ecstatically, sharing the Daily’s article that reported the statistic. “Fuck Harvard,” another noted more bluntly, lauding how the Farm is now the most selective University among the nation’s major top schools.

The Editorial Board feels that we as students should react to this “new low” with caution, not cheer. Stanford University has become steadily more selective over the years. The University admitted 7.2 percent of applicants in 2010, 7.1 in 2011, and 6.6 in 2012. This pattern of increasing selectivity–culminating in our lowest ever rate of 5.69–should raise concern over the ever higher barriers to entry for students from first-generation and low-income backgrounds.

To be clear, we are not making an argument about the particular data set of the 2013 admissions. Generally, the admission rate may go down because the total applicant pool grows, which need not have any bearing on the admissions rate of low-income students. In fact, the share of low-income admits may very well have risen over the past five years, even as the total admission rate has gone down. We do not have access to this data, nor are we saying the new rate in itself demonstrates a higher barrier to entry.

We are saying, though, that this concern should be foremost when hearing such news–unhesitating self-congratulation smacks of apathy in the face of a growing issue of national concern.

According to a study co-authored by Stanford Professor Caroline Hixby, only 34 percent of high school seniors who were high achievers but from the bottom fourth of the income distribution attended any one of the nation’s 238 most selective schools. The number is 78 percent among high-achieving students in top income quartile. Additionally, around 70 percent of low income students in elite colleges come from 15 cities which have comparatively high-quality public schools. Outside areas with such resources, rural areas in particular, low income students are largely blocked from admissions.

There are obvious and hugely determinative consequences to missing out on the top tier education. Top tier schools have much higher graduation rates than the schools low-income students more frequently attend, not to mention the better quality and breadth of coursework as well as the abundance of networking opportunities. Low-income students even do better while studying at selective colleges: 89 percent of them graduate compared to the 50 percent of high-achieving low-income students matriculated in nonselective schools.

There are also systemic features of the admissions process that disadvantage students from low income backgrounds. Admissions offices in elite schools heavily weight Advanced Placement test scores, but according to a report by the College Board–which lamented “distressing results”—nearly 70 percent of low income students fail these tests. Moreover, according to a report from the Department of Education’s Civil Rights Data Collection, AP courses are not even offered in many poor districts.

Stanford is of course aware of this issue and explicitly addresses it in its acceptance policy.

In a statement delivered to the Daily, Director of Admissions Richard Shaw asserted:

“We acknowledge that students apply to Stanford with different opportunities and exposure. That is why we pay so much attention to the schools and environments applicants are coming from,” he said. “Admissions definitely does not disregard any applications without a thorough contextual review. We factor in school profiles, and the kinds of opportunities that students have had in our decision.”

Certainly this statement of principle is admirable, and Stanford is even among one of the more inclusive elite schools. As far as we are aware, however, there are no explicit and measurable goals articulated by the Office of Admissions. This is problematic as social pressure for change can hardly be applied to a process no one can see.

We do not presume to offer solutions nor do we mean to question Stanford’s earnest commitment to addressing the issue. We do, however, wish to voice concern given Stanford’s admission season so recently ended.

On the level of policy, we want both a more transparent approach to help increase accountability, and one that has definite, quantitative goals that are easily evaluated.

On the level of discourse and conversation, we more certainly ask our peers to be less unconditionally jubilant and more discerning and demanding about an issue that everyone should care about.

New Policy Expands Executive Power, Eliminates Due Process

The signing into law of the National Defense Authorization Act for 2013 represents either lack of care for constitutional rights or a complete inefficacy on the part of the Obama administration. Whatever the reason, President Obama has gone back on his word and refused to veto a dangerous piece of legislation that could have dangerous repercussions in the future.

The NDAA has traditionally only served as a simple budget measure for the Department of Defense, allocating funds and setting policies for their spending. Historically, though, this has been manipulated to include provisions that won’t be challenged, because the bill is too important to be slowed down in congressional arguments. Recently, the NDAA has been used to handicap President Obama’s ability to shut down the Guantanamo Bay detention center and to allow for the indefinite military detention of anyone suspected of aiding the activities of any terrorist group without due process of law.

Of course this sounds bad, but ultimately inconsequential to most Americans. But these two provisions have far-reaching impacts that threaten basic constitutional principles of freedom far beyond what national security can justify.

The former is one of many setbacks to the closing of Guantanamo Bay that Obama has attempted since his first day in office. Congress has consistently voted down the allocation of funds necessary to transfer prisoners out of the camps, which on the surface makes sense, given our fiscal crisis. But the NDAA 2013 allows for the expansion of major weapons programs throughout the armed services, including $60 billion for the Navy’s F-18 fighter plane program alone. This is thousands more than it would cost to move the Guantanamo prisoners to the mainland for prosecution or repatriate those who have been already been cleared for transfer back to their home countries. This is also a violation of constitutional separation of powers, as Congress is basically suspending the president’s role as commander-in-chief and executor of matters of foreign affairs.

Not that this matters, though: Obama’s own actions reveal his commitment to shutting down Guantanamo. Despite paying lip service in his signing statements to fighting the unconstitutional impositions on his executive authority, the president has signed the NDAA into law two consecutive years with no attempts to remove these provisions and breaking his own threat to veto the bill. He also restarted military trials and gave an executive order that allows for the indefinite detention without charge of those kept at the base. Just last week, the office in charge of ending operations at Guantanamo prison camp was shut down by the State Department.

Why does this matter though? For one thing, the abuses of human rights at Guantanamo Bay are a stain in our national history, and its continued operation shows a tacit approval of these actions, especially considering the same crimes are still committed. Our refusal to adhere to a higher standard is only fuel to terrorist groups who can point to this as an example of America’s hypocrisy in regards to human rights. But more importantly, it shows a worrying two-facedness on the part of the Obama administration. Despite speaking often about his commitment to closing Guantanamo, he has only taken actions that have prolonged its activity. His real motivations and goals remain unclear.

The second major ramification of the NDAA is its continuance of last year’s section 1021, which allows military forces to hold anyone suspected of aiding a terrorist group indefinitely without trial. If brought to trial, suspects would be tried in a military tribunal described under Article I of the Constitution as opposed to Article III courts, denying due process of the law. Many have argued that this is already provided for by the Authorization for Use of Military Force Act of 2001, which is already frightening policy, but the new law is far vaguer and specifies that the law can apply to U.S. citizens and legal residents. Opposition to the law has been widespread, including the Feinstein-Lee amendment in the Senate for this year’s NDAA that would have negated this provision but was nixed behind closed doors when the bill went to the House.

Last year, Obama mentioned in his signing statement that he found trouble with these parts of the bill, and he would seek to remove the offending sections. Since then, though, a lawsuit against him filed by a number of journalists and activists (Hedges v. Obama, 2012) sought to do precisely this and won an injunction from District Judge Katherine Forrest. Instead of ceding and allowing section 1021 to be struck down by the judicial system, the Obama administration appealed and filed for a stay on the injunction. The Supreme Court denied the application to hear the case or remove the stay. The argument made by the administration could have easily been that the plaintiffs (journalists who felt their ability to appropriately cover stories about terrorist groups was threatened by the law) were not endangered by the law. The fact that the administration refused to make this claim proves that the law impinges on First Amendment rights.

Even if Obama personally has no plans to implement the laws in such a fashion, his intentions mean nothing. Though the signing statement might provide a guideline for how his administration will interpret the laws, they have no binding power. Future administrations will have the ability to remove the rights of anyone who even consorts with groups labeled by the U.S. as terrorist indefinitely. Obama’s signing statement for the 2013 NDAA didn’t even make mention of section 1021. An inclusion this year states that the provision should not be construed to deny the writ of habeas corpus, which works a superficial fix. But the habeas corpus has already been affirmed for all people. This is only applicable if those detained by the military had access to an Article III court, which is impossible under detention. The wording serves as a convenient way of ignoring the harsh implications of section 1021.

So why worry about this? Obama has shown his willingness to deny due process of law in the pursuit of terrorism suspects with his actions in Guantanamo, and he is now expanding the government’s power to detain so it includes anyone who is even suspected of associating with terrorist groups. It’s your choice: Is he seeking this power for the executive branch, or is he really this crippled by Congress?

These issues seem distant from Stanford. We live in the bubble, as is often pointed out. But that doesn’t mean this legislation doesn’t affect us. Without even resorting to a slippery slope, it’s easy to see that our government doesn’t prioritize human rights or transparency and is more than content with going behind the backs of the American people to take away the freedoms of not just America’s enemies but its citizens as well. Stanford has a history of letting the government know when we disagree with its policies. While violent protests aren’t quite feasible, a simple letter to your congressman might make the slightest bit of difference. To put your voice behind measures seeking to change the NDAA, visit http://bit.ly/VKSsi1.

UPDATE: This article was edited to change “legislature” to “legislation” in the first paragraph.

My mother and I have a restraining order against a man who has threatened violence against us and who has access to guns.

For this reason, my mother recently got a license to carry mace. Though both of us self-identify as pro-gun and come from a long line of gun-toting Southerners, she has no interest in obtaining a concealed weapons license, and I would never support her decision to do so.

This article is in response to an article by Devon Zuegel called “Why College Campuses Should Allow Concealed Carry,” published in the last volume of the Review. Zuegel’s argument is based around the ideas that gun-free zones have no defense in the case of mass shootings, that mace and Tasers don’t have the power to deter assailants, and that concealed weapons reduce crime rates. I won’t argue the last point because statistics on this are difficult to ascertain given the number of variables. But I do believe that a college campus is not the place for weapons, and that I feel safer knowing my campus is gun-free.

Zuegel points out, as many concealed carry permit proponents do, that criminals will carry guns despite absolute bans, which leaves regular citizens defenseless. This is a flaw in the understanding of why we create laws. We do it as a way of condemning behavior detrimental to society so that punishments can be administered. A ban on guns allows prevention before crimes are committed, as opposed to simply punishment after an assault. Harsh penalties are meant to discourage criminals from entering the gun-free area and give them greater punishments if they do, similar to drug-free zones around schools. Saying that outlawing guns will mean only outlaws will carry guns is a specious argument. Only outlaws organize dogfights. Only outlaws commit arson. The ban is in place because no one should carry guns in these areas, and the law is there to attempt to ensure this doesn’t happen.

In situations such as mass shootings, additional gunmen only create greater danger and can lead to more confusion for law enforcement. When police or security arrive at a scene, it’s impossible to tell who the original shooter is, and by that point the civilians who have taken it upon themselves to act have greatly increased the chance for other bystanders to be injured. Shooting is difficult both mentally and physically, even under ideal conditions, and especially when it’s with the intent to injure or kill. Some people possess the mental acuity and coordination to respond in the case of a massacre with immediate target recognition and accurate shooting. But they are an exceptional type, and not what our legislation should be based on.

Citizens don’t put their trust and safety in other citizens (especially untrained, untested undergraduates), they put it in law enforcement and security details, who are given this responsibility. Zuegel insists that CCP holders would not be vigilantes, but by allowing someone to carry a tool with the potential to kill with alarming immediacy you are entrusting to them the lives of everyone within range. She points out that many school shootings are stopped before law enforcement can even arrive, often by the attacker himself. This just goes to prove, however, that the people who commit these crimes are not people with any sense of self-preservation who would be dissuaded by the presence of CCP holders. All they could accomplish is further violence.

This brings me to my mother. She’s a fine shot, and can handle high-stress situations well. But there are too many situations in which a gun would only elevate the danger for herself and for bystanders. Zueger states that criminals will retreat 55.5% of the time when confronted by a gun. But the other 44.5% can end in serious danger for the gunowner. According to a study by the University of Pennsylvania analyzing shooting victims in Philadelphia, those who carry guns are 4.5 times more likely to be shot and 4.2 times more likely to be killed by a gunshot than unarmed citizens, which increases in situations when they have a chance to defend themselves. This can be partially attributed to the kinds of people who carry guns, but also to the fact that carrying a gun can easily cause overreactions and paranoia and an inflated sense of safety in dangerous situations. I recognize the value of the safe feeling carrying a gun imparts, but having a campus in which some people carry dangerous weapons will make the vast majority of students feel far more unsafe.

In a study by the National Institute of Justice, injuries to both police officers and suspects were drastically reduced once police officers began using pepper spray in dangerous situations. The use of pepper spray worked as an effective deterrent to criminals without resorting to guns or excessive force. If the only concern for CCP holders is personal safety, pepper spray is a legitimate alternative to a gun. In situations where a gun would be necessary, it is obviously preferable to merely incapacitate an attacker rather than risk serious injury to either party. Self-defense does not turn the victim of an attack into the criminal-justice system; if there is an alternative that eliminates the chance of death, this should always be taken. My mother carries pepper spray so that a dangerous situation can be handled without elevating the risks for herself or the attacker. I rest easy knowing that she has the means to defend herself without the chance of the kind of tragic accident that can easily arise when guns are drawn.

Guns are tools; this is true. But they are tools designed to kill. It’s because of this that they must be regulated. I do believe in the rights of Americans to possess and carry guns, but I accept that there are limits to this. Concealed carry might provide peace of mind for the carrier, but eliminating a dangerous and unnecessary weapon from an area that thousands call their home removes a threat and guarantees peace of mind for the entire student body.

It’s quite the common “research process.”  Suppose you’re a Stanford female (quite the catch I might add) and you’re interested in this guy, with whom you’ve interacted at least enough to warrant a Facebook friendship.  Wanting to know more about him, you “browse” (read: study) his Facebook page and begin to glean the necessary information.  Yup, you reassure yourself, he’s single. Then comes the arduous photo review process, where you learn everything from the names of siblings, best friends, and ex-girlfriends to his family’s favorite vacation spots, all the while thanking God for making him so much hotter now than he was in high school.  Meanwhile, you share the results of your preliminary research with your girlfriends and they’re excited for you—some even partake in the “data gathering.”  And if you ever reach the point where you start dating him, well, you might even consider expanding your data set to include Google search results.

Though the above scenario is indeed stereotypical, romantic “research” is an increasingly common factor in twenty-first century dating.  And from the perspective of information technology, the massive amount of data exchanged during the dating—or even just the liking—process lends itself quite well to a potential technological consolidation of “dating intelligence.”

It is upon these observations that Lulu was launched.  Dubbed “Sex and the City Meets Facebook” by Cosmopolitan, Lulu is a ladies-only, mobile web-based app that has recently gripped the attention of female college students throughout the United States.  The app allows female users to anonymously give numerical ratings to their male counterparts on everything from his manners and level of commitment to the quality of his kisses and sexual performance.  There is also a “Best and Worst” section where ladies can more descriptively review the man in question by selecting pre-set hashtags like #CleansUpGood, #SixPack, #SmellsAmazeballs, and #LovesHisFamily for more positive attributes, and #NapoleonComplex, #SketchyCallLog, #TotalF***ingDickhead, and #GoneByMorning, for more negative qualities.

Founded in London by two young, successful entrepreneurs, Alexandra Chong and Alison Schwartz, Lulu raised $2.5 million in funding last February.  According to Business Insider, “80 million profiles have been viewed on Lulu, 12 million searches have been conducted, 7.5 million reviews have been read, and there have been 6 million user sessions,” all within the last three months.  And while Lulu does not have an official presence at Stanford (according to a Daily interview with Chong) it is increasing in popularity on campus, with many Stanford men featured on the app.

Yet Lulu is making headlines not necessarily because of the product’s originality, but because of its controversial nature, with people either loving or hating it.  Some women find the app useful for revealing whether or not their new romantic interest is, in the words of Lulu’s own website, “a wolf in sheep’s clothing.”  But many criticize the app, arguing that it “objectifies men” while violating their privacy. This is because in addition to the Yelp-like nature of the reviews, men can have no idea they are being rated since the app is Facebook-based.  In other words, once a woman downloads Lulu onto her phone, the app creates Lulu profiles for her male Facebook friends, pulling basic information from their own Facebook profiles.  In order to avoid being rated, men have to submit a written request to Lulu to have their profiles removed.

A contributor to the Review, who shall remain anonymous, pointed out that this was an area of serious concern for him.  “One of my biggest problems is that I have no choice to participate,” he wrote to the Review.  “If someone *wants* to be part of a platform where men are rated, then that’s their choice (although I think it’s silly) but I think Lulu is really problematic because everyone is automatically opted in, even if they have serious problems with the platform.”

He added, “It’s just weird to me that my mother and sister can read all about my romantic life. When else has private information been that public in society? It’s just weird.”

And, indeed, I agree that the app is problematic. Having downloaded Lulu myself in order to write this article, I also do find it a bit strange, especially when some of the men that come up on my “Dashboard” include my brother and my own father. Perhaps even more strangely, not only are some of these men not my Facebook friends, they are not men—they are boys, sometimes as young as 13 or 14.  I recall encountering one particular profile in which the age listed is 21 and the “college” listed is actually a middle school. The accompanying profile picture is one of a boy who cannot be above 15.  His ratings, however, include everything from #Big.Feet to #F***edMeAndChuckedMe to #420.  Recall that Lulu requires its users to verify that they are at least 17 years old.

Equally as disturbing is the discrepancy of information that seems to exist between Lulu and Facebook.  For example, when cross-referencing the Facebook and Lulu profiles of this 21-year-old middle school Casanova, nowhere was there any indication that he put 21 as his age on Facebook, as indicated on his Lulu profile. Similarly, when I cross-referenced the Lulu and Facebook profiles of the Review contributor above (with whom I am actually friends), the latter makes no mention of his birth year but indicates that he is 39 on Lulu, when he in fact is a college-aged student.

Perhaps my reservation lies not so much with the app’s violation of privacy, but with the small, accumulating damage it might do to the reputations of good but imperfect men.  Browsing through the Lulu profiles of a few friends, I couldn’t help but fear that one day a girl might allow the lines #RudeToWaiters and #GoneByMorning to shape—however so slightly—her impression of these guys. Or, worse, if those lines would leave a more lasting impression on her than things like #BelievesInLove and #WorkEthic.  The process of befriending or dating someone is so rewarding perhaps because of the continuous discovery of the other’s best and worst qualities—i.e. what makes them who they are. A million hashtags could not capture this.

Problematic as the app may be, the controversy Lulu has garnered nevertheless presents us with an invaluable opportunity to evaluate critically the extent to which social media affects our everyday relationships.  Known (or perhaps, criticized) as the generation demanding constancy in connection and instancy in information, we should ask ourselves more than the mere question of what a new social media platform can give us, but what it might require us to sacrifice.  Apart from our privacy, is our ability to connect deeply with others being affected by our often shallow interactions with others online? In the particular case of Lulu, women indeed might gain knowledge about a man that would heavily influence her decision to continue seeing him.  But then would we just be sacrificing an opportunity to really get to know him, based on a few dirty little secrets from his past, revealed by an anonymous woman on her phone?

Dear all,

It brings me great disappointment in having to address you under such circumstances, but on behalf of the Stanford Review, I would like to apologize for the recent plagiarism allegations brought against one of our past columnists. As editor emeritus, and the incumbent editor-in-chief at the time of these columns’ publishing, I am obliged to explain to you our position.

In keeping with the Stanford spirit of individual honor, the Review has not checked columnists’ work for plagiarism in the past. The recent allegations brought forward have been against Vasant Ramachandran, who was a frequent contributor to the Review last year. Mr. Ramachandran was an opinion columnist, and a long-standing writer for the Review. Having personally known him, I endorsed his intellect when selecting him as a columnist, as would anyone who knows Vasant. It never occurred to us that he may have plagiarized any part of his articles. He has since graduated from Stanford, and is no longer affiliated with the Review. As of now, we have taken down all of Mr. Ramachandran’s columns, and they will remain offline pending further investigation.

The Stanford Review has had a long tradition of conducting insightful and professional journalism. We have always highly revered our readership, and have upheld our journalistic integrity for over 25 years of being in print. I assure you that these accusations are not a reflection of any intentions or shortcomings of ours. At a college campus that is home to some of the most brilliant young minds, it was not unreasonable for us to operate on an honor system, whereby we would not judge the authenticity of our columnists’ work unless faced with blatant plagiarism. However, we have learned from this incident that we must be more vigilant, and are implementing policies to ensure that nothing will get published on the Review until it has passed a plagiarism check.

To those writers whose work has been plagiarized, we are completely contrite, and will ensure that all such work is taken down. To our readers, we implore that you recognize our merits as a major college journal, and our efforts to develop best practices from this setback. The Stanford Review will always strive to bring you the best investigative journalism from the Farm, as it has for many generations of Stanford graduates.

Thank you,

Nadiv Rahman

Nadiv Rahman ’13 is a graduating senior. He was editor-in-chief of the Stanford Review during Volume 48, and has been involved with the Review since Spring ’10.