A perfect example of “backdoor gun control” is that which exists in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
There, no gun may be sold unless it conforms with “the Attorney General’s Guidelines” with respect to safe firearms design.
What that means in practice is that no firearms company may sell their products in Massachusetts unless they’ve jumped through an endless series of legalistic hoops laid out by the Attorney General’s Office.
There’s no need for any legislation, and no legislator has so far sought to challenge the legality of this mandate by individual fiat.
What happened is, in effect, one man - the Massachusetts State Attorney General - outlawed most handguns simply by deciding it would be so.
No need to conform to the constitution, and no need to bother with any legislators or state assembly of any kind.
And, by the way, Mitt Romney never did a thing about it while he was governor.
bfl