Point is if they feel like they can give a ticket for carrying out a constitutional protected act today, what will they do tomorrow if they have real power. IOW, it means something to the ones giving out the tickets.  They see their actions as saving society from itself. “Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victim may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated, but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.” ~ C. S. Lewis