I've read a few gun bloggers' comments that having a gun available to them made them -less- likely to consider violence, less likely to treat insults seriously; they had implicit knowledge that whatever slurs or insults came their way, that's all that it would amount to. They couldn't be bullied, and offense was removed from the equation.

For them, a gun was a stoic focus.

I've seen others for whom martial arts provided a similar stoic focus.

For a lot of people in a lot of situations, taking offense is in fact an offensive maneuver, of the train of thought that "The best defense is a good offense." It's an opportunity to demonstrate that they will defend themselves. Remove the perceived need for that, and things get considerably simpler. People are at their most easily offended when they feel the most vulnerable.

Thus, I suggest anybody who is easily offended consider and address their sense of vulnerability first. It's entirely possible the offense taken is at a perceived threat, rather than the words themselves.