alt Hacker NewsMatchlock Musket took forever to fire. It needed all these steps: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2KTS8PQ06Qo This is powerful when in actual battle, pretty impractical in the Paris streets and situations these guys find themselves in.
Comments here make big conclusions basically out of mundane historical realities. Our modern stories about soldiers feature soldiers using arms appropriate to occasion too - not just the most powerful but least practical gun assigned to their unit.
Tl;dr modern tank battalion guy is not driving tank everywhere either. Not because there is some profound disconnect with social class or system or other people, but because he is not an idiot.
Flintlock tech was available at the time the books were set. The pan could be primed and loaded in advance and kept ready to fire.
Still only good for one shot before you need to switch to a blade in close battle, of course, and utterly beside the point of the story, but worth calling out.