Problem:
You're playing in pub matches.
Solutions:
1. Deal with it.
2. Get heavily involved with the competitive community and abandon pub matches.
3. Suggest an option that weakens your ships considerably for a benefit that will only even potentially play out in a very niche situation in pub matches, and will never be a good idea for competitive play.
4. Hope for a competent crew and complain when you don't get it.
5. Ragequit from Guns of Icarus Online.
They are, of course, ranked in order from best option to worst. Analysis of why follows:
1. Simply dealing with this kind of situation helps a person to grow. Many jobs require you to deal with customers or to manage employees. In both situations, the task can often be described as trying to make a stupid person listen to you and do something they have no interest in doing regardless of how it will benefit them. As such, being patient with similar situations in gaming is actually helping you develop good interpersonal and management skills.
2. Now that the game is officially part of MLG, there's a chance that successful involvement in the competitive community could lead to a paying job playing the game. Who wouldn't want to be paid real money to play Guns of Icarus? I know I would. There are a few flaws though. If you're lacking in friends who play, or if you wouldn't trust most of them with a full complement of guns on your ship, then you might be out of luck on improving your situation. Also, sticking to competitive play requires a measure of dedication that might be out of reach for some players. Another problem is that by avoiding less disciplined people, you're setting yourself up to be less competent in difficult social situations in the real world, and avoiding a chance to learn effective management tricks that this game can help to teach you. Most competitive players also play pub matches, and the more difficult situation of dealing with randoms can help them coordinate even better when they're working with their teammates.
3. While this may help resolve the issue on some levels, it's a "band aid for a broken arm" type solution that doesn't address the real issue. There's also a big risk of a feature like this backfiring. Many stupid players are going to find ways to be stupid no matter how much you limit their options. If you're lucky, they'll pull out their spyglass or jump on the helm and burn out the engines with random piloting tools any time you let go. If you're unlucky, they might hijack the main gun and prevent the gunner from having access because you didn't give them any other toys to play with. If the whole concept backfires, people who end up on a ship with a "no gun" gun slot might mutiny. You could end up with multiple crew members doing nothing but leaping repeatedly to their deaths and respawning again until you die and have to start again. They might leave your ship, or stay and threaten to keep doing the same thing until you give them back "their" guns. You might also have them trying to be "helpful" by loading the few remaining weapons with inappropriate ammo types ("Lochnagar Flamethrowers are awesome! HONEST!"). Some of these deliberate trolling actions can come about unintentionally at times too - if you're with someone who's legitimately that bad at the game.
4. While this is slightly less of a "cry to the devs" approach than 3, it's going to cast you in a bad light. Other players will hear your crew having fun, and you ranting and raving about how they suck and you should have done so much better if they were competent. If you're in a public match, having fun should be the primary goal. If you're not having fun, switch to another room or take a break.
5. This is clearly not an option I condone. I included it only for completeness. While theoretically possible, I can't conceive of any situation where it might actually be a valid option to consider against any of the other possibilities. As it involves an indefinite period of not playing Guns of Icarus Online, there is no redeeming factor to make this theoretical solution look like anything but a bad decision. Please DO NOT TRY IT.
EDIT: Fixed typoes
