Kind of the same thing I heard and the way I took it. If one chooses to believe that these clods who are also traveling with the caravan, are not beneath using that as a cover to use things other than rocks, is naive. Kind of like the radical islamic terrorists using kids as suicide bombers, these miscreants are that low.
If rocks are thrown at any of our people, take the initiative and put a stop to the problem using whatever means are necessary, period. Throwing rocks is just a temp gauge to see how much we can take, first rock would mean we could take the first shot.