ABSTRACT
Detractors of Second Amendment guarantees contend that only constitutional iconoclasts would question the congressional option to approve such legislation, because the Congress' regulatory power over commerce provides legitimacy for the much-needed ban on imported assault weapons. The peaceful means of institutional separation of powers, elections, and the amendment process were augmented by the presence of armed state citizens. Elections, the legislative process, and the amendment process were the procedural means to be used to discern the collective interests while simultaneously grounding the national government's policies in popular control. The Second Amendment protected through fundamental law the means of such state resistance to an usurping national government. The Second Amendment was the constitutional means to maintain this military imbalance of power between the some levels of government. In extreme circumstances states were expected to defend their interests, with the right to bear arms being a means toward that end.
