I thought it was ridiculous too. There was a scene where the militia were using musket loaders as their rifles while the black bad guy had a semi-auto handgun, which made no sense at all. I guess the premise was that even standard firearms were rendered useless following whatever happened when the power went out.
Swords, bows and crossbows as the primary means of self defense? Give me a F'n break..........this will be a one season pony only.
I would imagine that it’s not that modern firearms would not work, but that the ammunition cannot be mass manufactured. Muzzle loaders could also conceivably be made with a “muscle, fire, and water” tech base, where modern firearms could not.
I doubt that a local strongman would have difficulty finding sufficient ammunition for his army only 15 years after everything stops tho.
The “premise” for the firearms was stated outright, that local junta leader had outlawed guns for all but his people. As for standard firearms brass doesn’t last forever, if you don’t have the power to run the machines to make new casings eventually you run out of brass to reload. They’re at pre-industrial revolution technology most of the time, at least when they have to make their own stuff.
FWIW, the Robert Adams' "Horseclans" series of books was set far off in the future, but even when firearms were available, they were generally shunned, since once the ammunition supply was exhausted, the firearms would become useless. There were also issues about reliability, but again, these books were set well off in the future. Finally, it was decided to teach the older weapons skills to their young, again because they didn't know if the supplies, like ammunition and spare parts, would be available in the future.
There were some characters that did use firearms exclusively, but there weren't very many of them. Interestingly, these were all descendants (and the original members) of a government installation.
Mark