On 7/28/2018 at 5:19 PM, L. Spiro said:...
The founding fathers had no concept of machine guns and rocket launchers
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Machine guns and rocket launchers were invented long before the Founding Fathers were born. They would've known the idea, but there was no way to mass-produce them for use by the army at the time. It wasn't for lack of trying, the Continental Congress actually ordered a primitive form of simi-automatic assualt rifle for the army from Joseph Belton in 1777, only to discover they didn't have the money to pay for it, so they canceled the order. (They also had to cancel the green and brown uniforms, leaving the army with only the (now patriotic) blue uniforms). They were able to mass-produce canister-shot that could kill 20 men in one shot though.
They really wanted something like the "Puckle gun", unfortunately the inventor, James Puckle, had died in 1724