That is the heated debate right now in this 138 comment thread. Some argue that the convention would only be for the specific purposes stated in each state's Article V petition, while others look to the wording of Article V and find no such limitation stipulated.
Since it's never happened before, nobody knows for sure.
States send applications, not petitions. A petition goes from a lower authority to a high authority. The Constitution recognizes that the states are co-equal partners with the federal entity; thus, the states send applications, not petitions, for an Article V Convention of the States.
“Since it’s never happened before, nobody knows for sure.”
That is the most bizarre reasoning I have ever seen.
Let me see if I can rephrase that: The founders wanted to provide a way out of federal power encroachment, and set forth language they thought would provide a protection, but we know that they were wrong. We know that even though every single objection and stated fear of things going off track have been extensively answered with legally stipulated reasons why it is utterly unreasonable to look at the plain language and assert things will get out of control, we still assert that things might get out of control. We have never bothered to research the background, the language, the arguments and safeguards, but we still in insist that “no one knows what might happen.”
I myself am considering staying indoors the rest of my life, because “it might happen” that a meteor smashes into me. The risk is just too great.
The really really really bizarro thing about this reasoning? The assumption that a society this far gone can depend on 2A as a collection of letters on an old paper to save them. That is probably the weirdest non-sequitur in this whole grab bag of weird.
With fifty or so states attending, the chances of a majority agreeing to any amendment at all at their first convention is minimal.
This is actually what the Deep State fears: a federal meeting of the states outside of their control. The states might get in the habit of expressing the people’s sovereignty.