The regulations were written in the US to be compatible with open source and customization, only requiring that outside software not be able to set the radio to transmit outside the legal limits that applied to that type of device.
A router manufacturer does not have to lock down all the firmware to satisfy this. They can make it so that the "set radio parameters" part of the firmware is separate from the rest, with only the former being restricted. This is the approach the FCC encourages, rather than simply locking down the whole thing.
In fact, when TP-Link was making routers that could operate outside legal power levels, and the FCC went after them, the consent decree they agreed to required TP-Link to work with OpenWrt and the radio chipset manufacturers to ensure that they could build compliant routers without locking out third party firmware.
The usual excuses are given, electrical safety, emission on protected bands...
You shouldn't ban general purpose technology because of particular bad uses.
And in this case, the proposed regulation is:
“””[R]adio equipment [shall support] certain features in order to ensure that software can only be loaded into the radio equipment where the compliance of the combination of the radio equipment and software has been demonstrated.”””
Now I don’t think that’s a well written rule, but my problem is the specifics rather than the general idea. I think that either all broadcasts should be digitally signed, or it should not be possible for hackers to remotely modify many other people’s radios to broadcast false signals. (One-on-one modifications I don’t care about so much, but how do you write/pass such rules, given the difficulty getting people to care about or believe the scale difference between automated and manual hacking?)
In general, current regulation makes the owner of the equipment responsible for the broadcast.
This new regulation will just stifle development on SDR technologies
What situation? What crisis is happening I'm completely missing?
Imagine how ridiculous it would be to have a regulation on wheels that they must try to prevent being installed on non-approved devices.
Neither do "most US residents".
More to the point, your focus on guns is missing the larger point. There is very real and immediate dissatisfaction with the EU regulatory landscape. See: Brexit.
I'm not as familiar with EU law, but similar changes in the US were prompted by "Import hardware configured legally, but manufacturer winks / doesn't care about flashes to illegal specifications" scenarios (indeed, it may be a way to boost sales).
The correct legislative solution seems to mandate locked RF firmware... while also mandating customer access to tinker with the remainder of functionality.
This addresses the tendency for manufacturers to simply lock down everything as the cheapest path to legal compliance.
TBH, if you want a right to tinker with RF firmware, a ham (or equivalent) license seems a low (probably too low) but necessary and fair burden.
Looking at this rule from another angle, I think the objective is to have a single entity to blame if interfering device is found. In this context this may seem rational -- all the firmware released that is mangling with intentional radiators needs to be tested to prove it is compliant. However, the method creates extra complexity for the device manufacturers and as time has shown -- does not really improve the matters in the long term, you will just get a fleet of devices running old firmware with unfixed bugs. Manufacturers often do not like it either, specially in the management.
I think it may be a classical example of "The road to hell is paved with good intentions" or Hanlon's razor*
Are the national governments pushing for more radio control? Is there some kind of crisis of radio abuse? Or is it an indirect way to give governments more punishment tools, by making radio modification a subversion of manufacturer controls, so you can be slapped with an additional charge if you ever use a custom radio device in a crime?