Law enforcement is not any braver than you or I, if they don't have overwhelming firepower they fall back on their first commandment which is "the policeman goes home safe to his family at the cost of absolutely everyone else including defenseless children."
The feds were very much aware "Bundys" was not just the ranching family but a whole bunch of people and greater militia network. If they had glassed Bundy himself it would have been a total shit-show.
Consider Michael Reinoehl.
As it is between the guns, radios, helicopters, and digital surveillance crrupt members of law enforcement knows that reprisal against their corruption by the general public is difficult if not impossible.
The second someone uses a drone to take out a blatently corrupt cop who received a paid vacation as punishment for murder the dynamic will change completely.
Look at how cops roll up on "is armed because you can't not be at his level" drug criminals. There's reconnaissance, preparation, checklists, etc, etc. Yes, there are exceptions, but it's generally orders of magnitude more professional than the sort of slapdash thuggery ICE is up to. And it's also much more expensive so they don't just target it at entire demographics, they prioritize.
While it's not a silver bullet. Being able to make credible threat of taking one or two of them with you really does force the government side to behave better, maybe not categorically, but enough to matter.
A nearly identical "force them to do better" argument applies to being able to film police, open records, and many other things.