I have great respect for Van Vogt. He writes about a lot of different SF topics and handles them well.
In this 1942 story he builds a setting 7,000 years in the future that reminds me of pre-Soviet Russia. We have an aspiring middle class growing up under an autocratic long-entrenched royalty. The specific setting is a historic village and the protagonist is a middle class conservative who likes things the way they are. The nice thing about Van Vogt's portrayal is he is empowered -- he owns his own business, he's a pillar of the community, and he's willing to take action to get things done. It's not a common characterization, and I find it a likeable one.
Some inconsistency: this is an age with atomic power but these people have little information on events in the world around them. They are provincial. This weapon shop is built around some even more powerful post-atomics technology, which is even more inconsistent with this provincialism. On the other hand, Van Vogt's portrayal of what provincial people are thinking and doing when faced with this strange non-violent situation in their otherwise orderly lives is well handled.
Van Vogt pulls together a nice sense of clever marketing for the weapons shop people. It's understated and classy. The guns are being marketed like fine jewelry.
The Weapons Shop people are magicians in the Arthur C. Clarke sense. Their high tech is limited in quantity, not ubiquitous, and not understood by the common masses. The Weapons Shop people have fancy equipment, some of it intelligent, and a worldwide network of shops. Even though they've been around for generations, Fara, the protagonist, doesn't have a clue as to their technology's capabilities. This pretty well defines magic.
The middle of the story is a nice handling of provincial-style coping with this new hazard and a good handling of gossip. Van Vogt handles his people motivations well.
Some more inconsistency: The mayor has a flying car, and the policeman guarding the weapon shop to see that no one came in was teleported to Mars without harm. He makes an expensive collect call from there reporting his plight, so planet colonization and space commerce are routine. In spite of this ease of transporation and communication, these people are still provincial. But Van Vogt depicts them well. The mayor is carping at Fara about the seven hundred dollar phone bill, blaming him.
Nice bureaucratic grinding up and spitting out. Reminds me of what I was working for in the second part of Child Champs. The only issue I have is that Fara gave in to the scandal threat so quickly. Interesting difference between the story and now: The loan was transferable and the new owner could force immediate collection.
There is strong emotional appeal to thinking, "The Leader would never support this outrage. If only he/she heard of this personally all would be fixed instantly." It shows up in this story and in real life it was a famous sentiment in Stalinist Russia among other places. When a manager has an "Open Door" policy it pulls a lot of strength from this sentiment.
The Totalitarian flavor of this story is strong, but I like that it is not post-apocalypse. Even with all the personal catastrophes Fara faces the society around him remains prosperous, orderly and draconian only in corrupt ways. It's not a typical social portrayal but I'm comfortable with it. In fact, I like it a lot. It reminds me of contemporary China.
Van Vogt makes a statement near the end that I wholeheartedly endorse. His weapons shop people say, "People always have the kind of goverment they want." with the italics.
Ah... swift justice! That wonderful aspiration that is constantly foiled by the "Let's make sure we get it right." aspiration and thus the compulsion for long judicial ritual. In this story weapons shop magic lets them tap accounting data flows so justice is both swift and sure. Related to this, I find it interesting how popular courtroom drama is on afternoon TV these days. Public dispute resolving has a long history and it's now popular as mid-tech entertainment as well.