Bravo. In my youth I once had a person attempt to "confiscate" my dirt bike, because he "thought" I was doing something I shouldn't have. The only thing I was doing was doing skidouts in the dirt at the end of a bike path on public property. People think they have all kinds of "right" when it comes to enforcing other people's behavior. The fact is that they DO NOT. The proper response in this woman's position would have been to politely ask them to leave. Then if they didn't leave call the police non-emergency number to report the trespass. Not 911! Most skateboarders will leave as soon as they are asked to and the rest will leave after the police are contacted.

Lulz....since when can you legally confiscate anything anywhere even if its on your property? (BTW she was a building manager not an owner)

But sir...i didn't steal their wallet. I CONFISCATED it. Carry on then....

You're lucky you were able to bully those laser-pointer KIDS into giving you their pointer. They could have easily told you to buzz-off. Then What? Then you could have either awkwardly sat back down or you could have been the 'crazy lady' in a movie theatre.

The only legal thing to do is have a chat and if that doesn't work, call the authorities.

"confiscating" is a thing only the government can legally do, when private citizens "confiscate" we call it stealing. In your example you asked the offender for the laser, if you had ripped it from their hands it likely would be technically illegal (even without tripping them like she did). When you take another's property without permission it's stealing, it does not matter if you claim you intend to give it back later or if they are asshats.
I was talking about the end of the video where she tries to either grab or punch the kid running away, and falls doing it. If she had grabbed and held him, as it seemed she was trying to do, they could have freed themselves, whatever that took. That's what I was saying, of course they could not legally beat her because she stole their board. I did say "if she had caught them..." in the original post, but I guess that wasn't clear.
I agree, the kids were wrong and should have left when told to, she should have escorted them off the property and returned the board, not tried to bully them because they didn't listen to her right away. They did "offer" to leave if she returned their property. What she did could have easily put her in danger of being sued (successfully) had her timing been better, or beaten with skateboards if the kids had really been little scumbags, and she had other, better options.

edit: on a side note, my point that she's just bullying is born out by the fact that she tells the kids they can get the board back from the sheriff, but then later indicates she had not intended to really call the sheriff by saying "OK, now I AM calling." (this implies she didn't intend to call until they grabbed for their board).

She wasn't stealing it, she confiscated it while they were engaged in something they were explicitly told not to do... ON HER PROPERTY.

A few years ago, I went to see Inception at the cinema and some little scumbags kept shining a laser pointer at the screen. After about 30 mins I figured out who it was, walked up to them, and told them to give it to me, or there would be trouble. They did, I gave it back to them after the movie. Was I stealing?

"They might have been within their rights to beat her senseless until she let them go."

No, they wouldn't have. Not even close. She wasn't holding them against their will, she took their board. By your rationale, a student would be entitled to beat a teacher senseless if they took the cell phone off them in class.

Frankly, fuck them. She asked them to leave and they deliberately set out to provoke her. They're cowardly little shits and they can count themselves lucky if they don't get in trouble.

edit: upvote, because as @spawnflagger says, I hope they get nailed because of this.

Was this video confiscated by the terrorists? IT WAS A SETUP.

Seriously, how is this video set up?

I can answer that easily, the vast majority of Australians including myself think that every word the NRA writes about Australia is a lie. Their videos take very old information out of context, and spin it into a story about another Australia and not the one we know and live in. Certainly there are some Aussies who like guns and look enviously at the U.S., and it therefore wouldn't be hard to fine one or two (out of 24 million) who will stand up and say "they took our guns!!!", but the majority are happy enough with the current laws... which is not to say they are perfect, because they aren't... they were drafted by clowns and have some really strange aspects (see @harlequinn's comment re competition pistol shooters for instance).

I don't think our legislation would suit the U.S. without some changes anyway, even apart from the dumb bits, it took into account the types of weapons common here and generally allowed people to own those types of weapon if they demonstrated a genuine need... so the list of allowed weapons would be very different in the U.S. than here. It was really just aligning all the state laws into one uniform national law rather than a lot of new controls (another point willfully ignored in the NRA articles btw, which assume a single date when everybody's guns were confiscated... wtf???).

The good part of our law is the idea that you don't just leave firearms lying around: only own them if you need them, keep them secured, if you don't need them any longer get rid of them.

Not that it really affects me either way, but it does seem to me that most of the most obvious firearms reforms in the U.S. are just reversing some things that the NRA lobbying has done over the past 20 years, and closing a few loopholes in current laws, rather than copying the Australian legislation to the letter.

Strictly speaking, I wouldn't want to have Australia's or Japan's system of gun control either.

As usual, I think a hybrid is possible. As usual, the argument gets framed as two extremes. total gun confiscation vs total unfettered access. Neither would work for America. As usual, the problem isn't really the laws, the problem is enforcement, but the NRA has done everything they can to make enforcement next to impossible too.

People like to throw out false analogies between cars and guns...so let them eat those words. We license cars and periodically re-test for competency. So do something similar for firearms. Perhaps some sort of home safety audit. prove you've got your firearms locked up safely. With rights come responsibility after all.

Sorry grampa, but if you can't see worth a damn, you're a liability, not a boon, with a weapon.

How many times have we seen on a sift someone who does treat weapons with respect and safety and another sift with some fucking idiot putting Evolution-into-Action with a firearm. If you can demonstrate proficiency and safety, most people wouldn't care how many weapons you have.

Even the NRA should be for this since they like to claim they care about safety. /sarcasm

In Australia, the government passed a law banning practically all guns then confiscated (read 'buy back') and destroyed them all. News photos showed guns in giant trash compactors and being sawed in half with sparks flying. This is the argument against anyone-especially this administration-who say "we don't really want to take your guns." Mexico is easy. Guns are completely outlawed there and so we see the population as helpless against better armed criminals. All the NRA has to do to defeat even the most simple legislation is bring these two examples up and you're done. That's why there is no hope of compromise.
--i'm not making an argument for or against. I'm only trying to make a correct observation of the condition.

Do the math folks. Confiscate the total wealth of the 100 richest people on the planet and distribute it to every head on earth. Amounts to less than $300 US per person. It's not going to save the planet. As long as people are free, wealth inequality will exist and the freer the people are, the greater will be the disparity.

Every 100 years confiscate the wealth of top 2% and hand it out to the bottom 80%

Doesn't Moyers make one hell of a lot more than the cameraman?
How about we confiscate his bank account and divy it up between all of us?

more strawman arguments.

no one has ever said "it couldn't happen." There is no one who thinks that America is magically immune to usurpation.

Here's the thing about that though. there are these wonderful things called warning signs and evidence. indications that we're heading down that road or at the very least THINKING about heading down that road.

none of which has happened yet. And sorry, Republicans losing a couple of elections isn't one of those warning signs...except for the extreme tinfoil hat wearer's in your group.

There are absolutely zero indications that the gov't is trying to confiscate all weapons or become tyrannical. Quite honestly, I don't think most people in America even know what real tyranny is. Having an election and your guy losing isn't tyranny.

When you have actual evidence, maybe the rest of the world will listen. Till then, you're a bunch of paranoid lunatics who are actually more likely to hurt a loved one with a gun than an actual "bad guy"

Our loving overlords want us to be protected, that's why they would want to confiscate our guns. We must yield to the all-knowing bureaucrats who will protect us from guns, 2 liter pop bottles, salt, etc.

It is for our own good.

The system we have works but is not enforced. The new background checks will lead to a registry for confiscation.