This, I think, is at the heart of a lot of what I see right now from people who think of themselves as "free speech" champions: they didn't actually believe that real world violence underlies the things they say & do, because it's only violence when it happens to *them*.
They've been playing with no stakes while imagining they are courageous heroes, & now someone has introduced stakes. They didn't ever think that THEY would have actual skin in the game.