Protests can be peaceful and armed, FWIW. That’s what started the Black Panthers. People realized that unarmed peaceful protests got violently broken up… But heavily armed peaceful protests had cops politely watching from across the street.

Cops were more than happy to fire into crowds when everyone was unarmed. But the cost/benefit ratio suddenly changed when the entire crowd could return fire. A cop may be able to hit three or four protestors, and in an unarmed protest, the rest would quickly scatter and disperse. But when everyone was armed, the rest of the crowd could immediately return fire instead.

It’s also what started modern gun control laws. When lawmakers saw a bunch of heavily armed black people on their front porch, and saw cops unwilling to break it up, they got really fucking sweaty. So Ronald Reagan (yes, the same Reagan that conservatives put on a pedestal) and the NRA (yes, the same NRA that lobbies for looser gun control after school shootings) co-sponsored the Mullford Act, which was the most restrictive gun control bill the country had ever seen. It was literally the start of modern gun control laws.

This is what drove the Black Panthers underground, as the lawmakers and police worked to criminalize and track them, so they could kick down doors during dinner time, instead of busting up the peaceful protests directly. And we still see that tactic being used today, with police setting up cell phone trackers and facial recognition cameras at protests, and raiding suspected attendees’ homes days or weeks after the protest.