[dragonwriter]

> Arguably, they intended to use them to defend themselves if they were attacked. (By humans, yes.) They were not hunting people down and assaulting them.

Then again they overtly sought to institute their own court system, and overtly sought to subject government officials to trial for various crimes by that court system, and issued threats for non-cooperation with that effort, so its not at all clear that the end game, were they not arrested before that escalated further, wasn't "hunting down people and assaulting them".

[ocdtrekkie]

That's a lot of speculation. And also immaterial to the point.

[dragonwriter]

> That's a lot of speculation.

The only speculation is that they would, if not constrained by intervening events, carry out their overt threats in support of their overt goals. That's not a lot of speculation at all.