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“Armed protests” is a funny phrase. The reason for bringing weapons is to scare people or fight.

There's a *minuscule* amount of grey area if the protest is specifically about gun rights, but otherwise you are absolutely correct. Using a gun to show how serious you are is just a different way of saying it's for intimidation.

It could be for intimidation, but it could also be to dissuade trivial intimidation or violence by police.

I witnessed a peaceful demonstration in the UK, in which mounted police struck completely non-violent protesters who were sitting on the ground in the head with batons as a way to scare the crowd into moving.

That wouldn’t have happened if the protesters had been armed.

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