Democrats are starting to doubt California Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for a convention of states under Article V of the Constitution to pass a Twenty-eighth Amendment on gun control, saying it could open a “Pandora’s Box.” …

But as the San Francisco Chronicle reported on Wednesday, Democrats worry that there is no way to limit an Article V convention — which has never been held before — to the topic of gun control, and that conservatives might use the meeting to introduce a variety of constitutional amendments that some have backed for years.

[Newsom’s proposal is nutty enough already, but at least it has the virtue of using a proper process. All this reaction proves, however, is that Democrats don’t understand it. An Article V convention could indeed start generating all sorts of amendment proposals, but each of them would have to be ratified individually by 38 states to take effect. Even if a completely new constitution was drafted, *that* would require three-quarters of the states to ratify it before it could replace the current constitution. Regardless of whether amendments come from Congress or a meeting of the states under Article V, the ratification process still applies. The state legislatures or individual conventions within each state would need to ratify each amendment.

For this reason, there’s not much to fear from an Article V convention. Only amendments with broad acceptance would even get close to ratification no matter what happened at an Article V convention. Over half of all states have “constitutional carry” now; tell me which 14 of those 26 states would vote to ban or severely limit access to firearms. The most likely issues to get resolved in an Article V convention would be a balanced budget amendment and term limits for Congress. — Ed]