“what could have been a legitimate and well deserved punch in the face”
This is a topic that needs to be considered carefully.
When you’re in a situation where violence is justified, you allow your more primitive instincts to engage the violence. But you don’t uses those same instincts, in a resting and contemplative state, to derive moral justifications for violence. Use a higher brain function for that.
What evidence do you have that the punch was well deserved?
Really? Then the justified wars never occur and the bad guys always win since they have no morality. Wake up, self defense is always justified as is suppression of illegitimate/illegal violence. There is a whole chunk of Federal Law dedicated to that premise. Educate yourself instead of virtue signalling.
What evidence do you have that the punch was well deserved?
The same evidence (truncated) that you claim it wasn't. Citizens aren't cops, they don't have to put up with the same thing. 'Fighting words are, as first defined by the Supreme Court (SCOTUS) in Chaplinsky v New Hampshire, 315 U.S. 568 (1942), words which "by their very utterance, inflict injury or tend to incite an immediate breach of the peace. ... Fighting words are a category of speech that is unprotected by the First Amendment.' Unless you think that was the whole clip. Since it started mid-argument your position is nonsensical.