Chris fired a warning shot. The man, who was carrying a stolen laundry hamper, began running. Chris emptied the magazine, firing off 12 shots by the time the intruder neared a fence in the family’s front yard, the 11-year-old told the station.

The final shot hit the man in the leg as he was hopping the fence, the boy said.

“I shot through the hamper he was carrying,” Chris said. “It was a full metal jacket bullet. It went straight through the back of his leg. He started crying like a little baby.”

There’s a common conception that an opinion cannot be wrong. My dad said it. Hell, everyone’s dad probably said it and in the strictest terms it is true. However, before you crouch behind your Shield of Opinion, you need to ask yourself two questions.

The most vicious insult in the Texas lexicon (or the Texicon if you will) is to call someone a damn fool. If you use this epithet, you’re not joking. You think the person in question is an idiot. Not just any idiot, but the kind of idiot who should probably be kept in a quiet room with soft walls and nothing but crayons so they can’t hurt themselves or others with their damn fool ways. This phrase is usually accompanied by quite a bit of head shaking in disbelief that anyone could possibly be so stupid.