Actually, yes. In colonial times it was completely common for ship owners to own the equivalent in armament of a Navy destroyer. See "privateer" among other categories.
Awhile ago I read up on “privateers”. We didn’t have much of a navy back then, so most of our ships were private. At one point the navy had three ships in the water and the privateers had over 450!
It is estimated that 13,000 privateers died - mostly while being held captive in the prison ships in New York harbor. (And then dumped into the water when they died). Compare that to the estimated 6,800 total U.S. deaths due to combat.
Thank God that our Founders had the wisdom to recognize our God-given right to own weapons with which to overthrow our own government. And I pray that we will never have to use it as they did during the Revolution.
http://longislandgenealogy.com/prison.html