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Inconsistent use of the terms concerning burglary, robbery or theft offences
Under the heading of William Shanklin the article says, in part: "He then broke into the house and robbed any valuable items he could find, ...", while under the heading The Knapp couple the article then says "Like the previous case, he burgled into the house and stole all valuables, ...". Not only is this poor grammar, the writing uses inconsistent language to describe the same criminal behaviour and misapplies terms describing the crimes of burglary, robbery and theft. Whoever wrote this clearly doesn't understand the different meanings in terms they have used and how these words should be used. Firstly, the crime of burglary is the act of entering a building, usually with the application of force in order to effect entry to the premises, with the intent to commit further crime within. Thus if one "broke into the house", one burgled that house. It makes no sense to say one "burgled into the house" because the house entry is implicit in the verb to burgle, so it would be like saying one "broke into into the house" because "burgled" means "broke into". Secondly, the crime of robbery is a crime of using force against a person in order to steal their property. Since, in both cases, all the victims had already been shot dead before the burglary occurred, there is no person left alive to apply force to and so rob them of their valuables. Instead, the burglar is able steal the valuables in an act of theft, without threatening anybody. Had the burglary occurred first, with the victims being shot dead in the course of being robbed of their valuable then it would be fair to say the victims were robbed of their valuables, but since they were already dead the valuables can only be stolen from the home. This is a subtle but important difference between robbery, burglary and theft that many do not understand. Thus people will say "our house was robbed" when they mean it was burgled. But I would have thought Wikipedia editors ought to know the difference. How such an article can be considered "B" class, with such bad grammar and poor understanding of criminal terminology, baffles me. - 203.96.84.33 (talk) 00:28, 24 March 2022 (UTC)[reply]
