Interesting to note that the only sailors actually quoted in the article are senior officers. Don't need more meaningless chatter about grit and perseverance, I wanna hear what a bosun's mate seaman thinks of the situation

OP is more infuriating than the post lol

I read a really excellent breakdown of this years ago that I'll attempt to paraphrase:

Modern-day guns are the endpoint of centuries of evolution! Evolution that, at nearly every step, is trumped by either magic or a simple bow and arrow.

Which isn't to say that guns can't or wouldn't exist in a fantasy world; "metal tube with an explosive that shoots something out" is fairly intuitive design.

But that basically gets us to, what, blunderbusses? Or maybe something even less functional, I'm no historian. Point being that, in a world with magic, innovating on a boomstick that has an effective range of ten meters may not be an attractive use of time when you have other, better options.