thats not really any deep question any rational person even asks.
That's literally what the entire legal debate is about, and no legal expert is claiming the answer to be clear cut.
But tell use more Lucy oh great one about what qualifies as rational.
If you are brainless ape, then words can provoke you to act violently.
It really does speak to your inability to understand the world around you that you think this sentence makes sense.
"Brainless apes" cannot be provoked by words because they lack the ability to understand them in any meaningful context. That's the literal difference between us and apes. Words are how ideas are expressed, and ideas are what cause us as human beings to react emotionally. To say that words cannot get an emotional reaction out of you is to say that you lack the capacity to formulate ideas in response to them.
You turn out to be much closer to the brainless ape you paint the attacker as.