I also can have solutions for you think protesters can do. The most important problem for hk rioters is no access to firearms. Unless they can get their hands on a few tonnes of fertilizers, IED also beyond them. It will be an unequal fight they have no chance in hell to succeed. Is CIA going to smuggle a cache of weapons to them?
Optics were designed to survive a real battlefield, if can easily damage by a few Molotov cocktails, then the manufacturer shd be shot.
Every uprising has access to firearms. That is not a problem. When you have armed force against protesters, the protesters will eventually have the weapons too. Armouries are looted, soldiers are ambushed and their weapons taken, etc.