Gun control is the topic of the Third Annual Nolan Fowler Constitution Day Celebration, set for 7 p.m. on Monday, Sept. 17, in Derryberry Hall Auditorium.

Joyce Malcolm, a legal history professor at George Mason University School of Law and one of the nation’s leading experts on gun control, will lead a presentation titled "The Second Amendment: Inalienable or Obsolete?"

An article in the Chronicle of Higher Education describes her as "one of the most influential scholars to make the historical argument in favor of the individual right to bear arms."

Malcolm, who has previously taught at such prestigious institutions as Princeton University, Bentley College, Boston University, Northeastern University and Cambridge University, has written numerous articles and books about gun control, the Second Amendment and individual rights.

Her articles and essays have been published in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, USA Today, The Boston Globe and other newspapers, and she is a frequent guest on radio and television shows in the United States and Great Britain.

"To Keep and Bear Arms: The Origins of an Anglo-American Right"; "Guns and Violence: The English Experience"; and "The Struggle for Sovereignty: Seventeenth Century English Political Tracts" are titles among the six books Malcolm has written.

Malcolm has served as a senior advisor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology Security Studies Program, visiting scholar at Massachusetts Center for Renaissance Studies, James Madison Fellow at Princeton University, Bye Fellow at Robinson College of Cambridge University and regular contributor to the British Social Affairs Unit web site.

She's a former recipient of Bentley College's Award for Excellence in Research.

All educational institutions receiving federal funds are required each year in September to host a celebration commemorating the Sept. 17, 1787, signing of the U.S. Constitution.

Fowler, a retired history professor and longtime constitutional law instructor here, provided a $150,000 endowment to establish our Constitution Day Celebration.

Chairperson of this year's committee to plan the event is Sharon Whitney, political science professor.

For more information about the Nolan Fowler Constitution Day Celebration, call the history department at 3332.