I'm actually surprised "aggravated assault" is a real charge. It's basically a court admission that he had it coming... well, it would be if it wasn't so broad. Somebody threatening me with the suggestion of violence will aggravate me real quick, but you know what? If Russia points their nuclear missiles at the US and starts shouting, the US bombs all of Russia's silos. If you start seriously insinuating that you're going to be waiting outside for me in a dark alley near the bar, I'm going to make sure you're limping before you leave, then I won't have to worry about a surprise attack from your lame ass later.

That's the problem here: you can make someone feel completely and totally unsafe, and legally what can they do? Call the police, get a restraining order... the cops are not my personal guard, and they will not watch over me 24 hours a day for the rest of my life. I'm not the President, I don't get four teams of body guards for all eternity. One day "something will happen," and they can't just go "OH we KNOW it was you, you're in trouble now boy!" and throw my declared adversary in jail for it. Gotta prove it.

But it's not self defense until they make that first move. Even if they actually burn your house down with you and your wife and kids in it, and you get out, and you find the guy running away with the gas can and torch, and chase him down, and rip his heart out of his chest, and you prove he did it in court, you get off for "temporary insanity" because you were "so emotionally disabled at the time that you couldn't identify the difference between right and wrong." If he's not standing there, right then, trying to stab you in the throat at that moment, you're not within your legal rights to do anything about it except cry to the police.

So you get these people, you can mostly ignore them, they won't make the first move. Not for legal reasons, but really because they need to really "get going" before they're into a fight. They're not feeling it, they need you to take the first shot to set off their fuse. You can't make the first move, because that would put you in bad legal standing. Unfortunately, that could draw more passive aggression (destruction or theft of property, annoyance or threatening of your friends and family), or it could set up real aggression and you could find yourself wandering out at night and you meet the same guy and a few of his friends and they decide to make the first move this time around.

It's all very, very complex. It's a social disaster is what it is; and trying to engineer laws for this crap was a huge mistake. Back in the day, a bar fight was "disorderly conduct" and maybe you got billed for "destruction of personal property." Now it's a serious assault charge, and they try to figure out who to blame for starting it, and if you can claim you didn't start it you might get off scott free, so if you can instigate it but not throw the first fist into the mix you can kick some ass and let someone else take the fall for it. So much suck.

Sometimes, you really gotta realize that somebody gets punched in the head, and the best thing for the cops to do is go, "Hey, you guys okay? Listen, behave. I don't want to have to come back here, and if I do you're both spending the night in separate cells to cool off. I suggest you both go home." It'd be cheaper on the court system, and better for everyone involved.