As we know with the First Amendment right, the rights of the people to petition and assemble in conventions are intimately bound up with the people’s right to alter or abolish their government. But while ratifying the Second Amendment in the Virginia Ratifying Convention, Edmund Pendleton stated - Whenever self-interested government agents abused their powers or shirked their duties, “the people” could “assemble” in convention and reassert their sovereignty. “Who shall dare to resist the People?” An aristocratic central government, lacking sympathy with and confidence from ordinary constituents, might dare to resist – especially if that government were propped up by a standing army of mercenaries, vagrants, convicts, aliens, and the like. Only an armed populace could deter such an awful spectacle. Hence the need to bar Congress from disarming freemen. Thus the Second Amendment was Closely linked to the first Amendment in style and numerical order.