Was there any actual violence? If not then it was peaceful. Merely being armed certainly increases the capacity for violence, but it’s not violence in and of itself.

I’m not familiar with Canadian law on the subject, so I don’t know if possession of the items in question is unlawful or if there was some other cause for the arrests.

> I’m not familiar with Canadian law on the subject

That's the crux of this - their weaponry was way out of line according to Canadian law.

I think it's not the worst thing in the world for there to be visual elements inspired by the 2nd Amendment. If nothing else, it puts pressure on the government and shows that many free thinkers have solidarity with Canadians.

In Canadian terms it's politically one of the most foolish things you could do. There's little constituency for 2nd Amendment style gun rights in Canada, so they'd be sawing off the limb they're sitting on. And that's apart from whether they broke the law, which would also be politically foolish since it undermines their argument of civil disobedience. I don't know anything about the facts of this case though.