...After all if you aren't hiding your true disposition why the need for defensive minded words?
Like Frank, I am not hiding my true disposition. Perhaps unlike him, I'm somewhat offended at the implication that I am hiding something or being less than honest. This is who I
am, at core: a good person who wants nothing more (and nothing less!) than to live my life in peace and die in my sleep at a ridiculously old age, surrounded by people who love me and who have also lived long and peaceful lives.
The reason your words matter, and the reason that the way you frame your acts matters, is because
your mindset prior to the act really matters! It is not some semantic game. It is a measure of who you are and what you believe.
The mindset you carry into the act has a strong effect on what you do during the most frightening and chaotic moments of your life. In the center of whirlwind chaos, you may not have time to reason anything through. You will act, or not act, based on who you are and how you think. The things you do in those circumstances flow out of the type of person you are. They flow out of the beliefs you carry with you all the time and out of the things you've considered before the activity. In a very real sense, those beliefs can make you or break you.
Physically, your beliefs can help you survive and prevail during the actual encounter. They determine whether you'll fight and for what reasons. They determine how much force you're willing to use and how soon. They determine what "winning" looks like for you: what your goal is, what you'll be satisfied with, where (or if) you'll stop.
The physical actions you take during your encounter lead directly into the legal justifiability of what you've done. If your goal, your definition of 'winning,' includes the death of the bad guy, you may not stop when the threat stops. You may survive the encounter only to fail the legal aftermath.
Even if erroneous beliefs do not trip you up during the physical encounter, they can easily ruin you in the aftermath. If you acted with any intent
other than to save innocent life, you may not pass the
mens rea test, because the intent behind your actions really does matter in court. Do you know the difference between murder and a lesser degree of homicide? -- It's the presence of
malice, which is nothing more than the mindset someone carries into the situation with them.
Mindset matters.
It's not just a words game. It flows clear down to what you believe and why you do the things you do.
pax