Honestly, they are a bunch of friends and their families who go together on weekends, hunting and showing off their weapontry. There are a whole bunch of people like them up here in MI. Some are survivalists, some are hunters, most are conservatives and are targeted by the libs.
About the time the arrests happened, my daughters started shooting lessons. The club where they went was all abuzz about these guys. Gun owners up here were watching it very carefully.
There's an easy way to tell that you are being set up on a sting: when somebody (especially somebody you know little about) initiates a discussion with you about doing illegal things. Big red flag.
Various LEO organizations have (I would guess) tens of thousands of people running around trying to entrap people. Somebody gets arrested for something, he's offered a deal where things will go easier on him if he helps get evidence on somebody else. Then that somebody else gets offered a deal, and the cycle repeats. That's what the feds tried to do with Randy Weaver in 1992.