I thought it was a fun bit the first time he fired the bowcaster. We had never seen it before and it made sense in the context of the situation
Chewie uses it in ROTJ to take out a speeder bike. And I can’t believe Han never in 40 years asked to shoot it.
I meant that we never saw Han use it before TFA, so it was fun to see it for the first time in TFA.
And I can believe Han would go that long without using it, there was (presumably) never a reason for him to do so. Judging by the original trilogy, none of them ever got shot (except Leia and Luke once each in ROTJ).