I think that what the Founding Fathers did at the time was perfectly sensible in the context of their time. It made good sense. They had no way of forseeing what would happen over 2 centuries later in a much larger and more technological society than their own. Other institutions have arisen to take the place of the citizen militia which they were envisioning in the late 1770s.

"If Congress had the balls to stand up to...."

Forget that idea. Congress doesn't have the balls to stand up to anything that gets in the way of Big Money interests, in my opinion, and that opinion has been borne out time and again. (The same situation prevails in Canada, and virtually everywhere else as well that has an elected assembly.)