Truth of Valor and the truth about guns

Last night, I finished reading Tanya Huff's (andpuff) latest novel The Truth of Valor. Set in her "Valor" universe, it's a military / space opera starring a recently-retired Marine Gunnery Sergeant named Torin Kerr. Gunny Kerr has taken up with a civilian salvage operator, Craig Ryder. Alas for their hopes of a peaceful existence, pirates are running amok, and our crew gets in the way. Huff's a good writer, and she's crafted a very entertaining, action-packed and all-round well written tale.

I do, however, have a nit to pick with Ms. Huff. See, in Truth of Valor, like all good pirate tales, there's a big treasure to be had. In this case, it's a Marine armory. A Marine armory full of (presumably) small arms and ammunition. Weapons which, as in all of the Valor books, use chemical explosives to propel metal projectiles. (You can't hack gunpowder.)

See, in Huff's world, all "projectile weapons" (presumably guns and not, like, arrows) are banned, and only the military can have them. (ETA This is shown as a successful ban - as in "a station full of bad guys don't have guns" successful.) Therefore, this cache of small arms will allow the possessor all kinds of power. Like, overrun and hold civilian space stations power.

Here's the problem - an industrial society sufficiently advanced to support privately-owned interstellar spacecraft can easily support the illicit manufacture of highly lethal guns. Hell, a society that can support private automobiles can make all the guns you'd ever want. Guns are just not that high-tech.

I was willing to let that slide for the sake of the story (it is entertaining) and of course the military always has the better weapons, which would make the armory somewhat more attractive. But an industrial society can no more ban guns then they could ban toasters.