IIRC, people involved in this case made extremely telling comments about the political alignment of the protestors. They despise them either way, the guns are just used as pretext to elevate it to the next level, especially since the people among them who didn't have guns or do anything violent didn't escape the wrath. They almost certainly would not have gotten slaps on the wrist, those are reserved for 'our good boys'. They would have still gotten their lives ruined, just not in quite the same dramatic fashion with showy century-long sentences, but just the routine 'you're going away for a long time' treatment.