How do you establish intent? What is the crime? If the stay-at-home order doesn’t include criminal penalties for gatherings, then nothing they did was illegal.

Like i said. I think intimidation broadly speaking was the point of carrying the guns but I also think it was insurance against being arrested and just jackass gunhumpers who want an excuse to wear a gun in public. It’s a prop as much as anything.

Emily Gorcenski, who was at Charlottesville and tracks far-right extremism, made a good point that militia groups aren’t a monolith. Some are quite obviously very dangerous and have been involved in terrorist plots, such as the Crusaders in Kansas City.

This demonstration was astroturfed though and a lot of these folks are normie Republicans who own boat dealerships and nail salons. There are some bonafide Nazis who turned out too and some Proud Boys, but by and large, my sense was that these are mostly weekend warrior types who are ultimately too comfortable and cowardly to actually do much of anything.

Again, don’t want to downplay the threat or anything, but I think it’s important to have a balanced perspective