You shouldn't let the politics of the situation cloud the obvious. If they didn't have guns, it would not have played out the way it did. That doesn't mean that what they did was good, or that how the government handled it was right. It just means that the availability of guns was a critical determinative factor. That also doesn't mean they were the sole factor, either. It can also be true that the government treated them with kid gloves. But it's pretty clear that they would not have done that if they weren't armed.