But then again, people always say that there is a limit to what you can do as self-defense, and many countries have laws regarding what counts as self-defense.
Like you can't really kill a person in self-defense if that person was just trying to steal (while holding a weapon) from you without but no physical harm was done to you.
And even if some physical harm was done, self-defense shouldn't be more than what harm was done to you (like, breaking someone's body part be hand fingers or knee, for bruise injuries from being beaten-up, could be considered as excessive self-defense which is illegal in many countries).
But overall, since the situation involves childrens, nothing major can happen legally (atleast in Asian region), as long an no one was killed.
Uhh... That's a very weird way to look at things.
If we follow the logic you just proposed, and to be fair I won't assume you're the one who believe it, but rather you may just be recounting what others suggest is how self defense should operate. Based on that statement, before I could actually defend myself from a mugging, I would need to first be stabbed before I could then defend myself with stabbing the guy with exactly proportional force.
There's a reason why self defense is all about the threat, not the actual harm. Because if someone has the intent to harm you, you have no clue at that time whether that harm will stop at a non-violent crime or escalate all the way into murder.
If you are faced with potentially deadly force, you should have the right to fight back with deadly force.
In this case, he's using non-lethal force. Brutal, sure, but it's all non-deadly. And he was facing beatings from overexcited kids high on self righteousness who did not care for his well being. Depending on how things could've gone, who knows what might've happened. A kick in the wrong place causing internal bleeding, a kick to the head causing a concussion, long term physical trauma and damage.
By all count, the amount of force he returned was brutal, sure, but more than proportional to the threat they posed to him.
And also, some places have really crappy self defense rules. New York for example, you need to attempt to flee at all cost, including if you are being assaulted in your own home. If you do not attempt to flee your own house from a home invader and instead choose to fight back, you will be open to being charged for assault and may not claim self defense, which incidentally has the negative effect of empowering the criminals. And of course, nevermind the idea of rescuing someone from harm, that also gets you charged for assault even if you were stopping an attempted murder. New York is a special kind of hell hole.
