Why are Ray Guns and Jetpacks Part of Steampunk?

[RJBowman]

It would settle this thread if people 'fessed up if (1) they have real guns at home, (2) they make Steam Punk guns.  The disposition of the two sets would be fun to debate, but I warrant that they do not intersect...

The best ray guns are made by people that have familiarity with real guns. You have to know the feel to be able to recreate it.

[Argus Fairbrass]

According to a previous posters estimations , I myself having only been involved with the Steampunk subculture for about 7 years am apparently also still a bit a n00b. Still in my relatively short experience interacting with Steampunks on various platforms, I've come to one conclusion. Many are actually way more into Dieselpunk, or even Atompunk than they realise. We particularly see evidence of this on Facebook very regularly. Folks posting 1920s/30s or even '40s and beyond gadgets and tech (be it functional or fantastical) as Steampunk. I think a great many, who I would consider to be genuinely new, just aren't yet aware other retrofuturistic subgenres even exist. This has actually become a bit of a bone of contention, particularly with some of the Dieselpunks I know. LXG certainly featured some anachronisms, l believe there are some kind of ray guns in the Barsoom stories, but the Rocketeer is Dieselpunk aight!  .

[BaronVonBoiler]

I supposed it would all be a product of how one determines the Steampunk timeline.

Personally, I base my ideas of technology and style heavily off how the railroads transitioned from steam to diesel locomotion. There is no finite division at which everything ends being Steampunk and becomes Dieselpunk, or Atompunk for that matter.

The largest railroads here in the States kept boilers under fire well into the 1950's, smaller lines even later than that. So to me, it would seem to reason that there would be many a person still fighting the good fight and trying to keep steam alive as the roar of diesel engines became increasingly common. I can envision that the Steampunks would undoubtedly adapt some new and upcoming technology to assist with their adventures. It's evolutionary, my dear Watson!

[Argus Fairbrass]

I would certainly agree that looking at real history greatly assists with perspective. Here in the UK we used our steam trains into the 1960s. The main reason for that was because we had a sizeable coal mining industry on which the country was economically reliant. Conversely there was at least one area in the US that banned them around the 1930s, due to concerns about pollution.
It's funny, the only folks I ever hear talk about the "Diesel era" are Dieselpunks. It isn't (to my knowledge) an officially recognised historical term. Partly I suspect because the decades they're referring to, weren't always as wholly Diesel powered as some of 'em seem to think. The nature of Diesel fuel meant that it was originally used to power larger engines. Smaller vehicles such as motorbikes, cars, tanks and other things that tend to excite us, all actually ran on petrol initially. What they're really enthusing about is the "Machine Age", but introducing Machinepunk now would likely only result in further complications.