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The whole concept of the metallic cartridge was brand new, the concept of the repeating firearm was brand new, the idea of an automatic firearm-how long have we had the concept of the raygun, how many are in use and available? Plus one of the disadvantages of the basement tinkerer/lone inventor is that their designs are usually not subject to careful R&D and critical analysis. For every John Browning or Henry Ford or John Garand who can think out their creation from start to finish and can visualize what will and WON"T work-in John Garand's case, thinking out the manufacturing steps-there are too many who either overlook such things or don't even realize them in the first place. The there is the matter of tooling up for mass production after the supposedly best design is chosen-and how is the "best" design chosen? And as others have noted, the concept of a truly automatic firearm-as opposed to a hand cranked one like the Gatling Gun-really had to wait for the development of smokeless powder.
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