every BLM protestor was good and peaceful and they definitely wouldn't have possibly hurt or even killed him, right?

Fuckin straw man.

Find me a LibLeft that doesn't condemn the rioters, looters, arsonists, and vandals while still supporting the protestors. We fully and freely acknowledge that there were people who either flat out used the protests as cover while they committed crimes or that started out as protestors, but escalated into rioters. Nobody's saying that every person who stepped outside during a BLM protest was a fucking saint.

But the Right wing certainly seems more than willing to paint every BLM protestor with the rioter brush despite the repeatedly verified fact that the percentage of peaceful protests was in the high 90s (I don't remember the exact figure).

And it wasn't about him defending himself, it was about him choosing to be a fucking vigilante.