Truer than some people realize. Military muskets, such as the Brown Bess, or the Harpers Ferry musket later, were designed by White Men to be, in every way possible at the time, a military arm. It was the best design that the best weapon designers could come up with and build at the time, for the purpose of winning wars with. Because by the 1700's firearms had already been in military use for several hundred years, by then every major military force on the planet understood that, statistically, the side that could keep the most lead in the air, going the other way, for the longest period, usually won. So It's loading procedures were optimized for rate of fire (a trained Redcoat was expected to be able to load and fire 3 shots per minute), in massed formations, not accuracy (it's average CPE of about 3 feet at 100 yards made it ill suited for hunting). Rifled firearms were available, and though much more accurate (capable of about 2" at 100 yards) were also much slower to load, and having no provision for a bayonet. In fact one of Washington's standing orders were that colonial militia armed with rifles would never be positioned where they could not retreat. It was also well adapted for CQB, in that the stock was designed and manufactured to take hard impacts and it was made to mount a bayonet, because cold steel had won more battles for the Redcoats than any other factor.