It doesn’t seem like catastrophizing when discussing how people might react to a stranger attacking them. Hitting someone in the face hard enough to knock off their glasses isn’t exactly some silly little thing that people would be ridiculous to respond to. It is an attack and people would likely perceive it as such. Plenty of people would just be stunned and do nothing, but plenty of people carry and go to the range every weekend just waiting for someone to try something.

When stranger assaults you, every person with some practical military training is going to want to neutralise target as fast as possible because this is the survival strategy that is hammered into your muscle memory.

There is no thinking or musing whether they just want to slap you or I don’t know what. You don’t know your attacker and their intentions.

This is the real world. I don’t know why you would think this is some kind of stupid game to go around and slap people. It will cause problems.