The point of knives

[SteveLaura 0]

Most fatal stabbings involve a weapon that is easy to obtain and sharp with it - a kitchen knife. Would stopping the sale of long blades with sharp points help save lives?

What would reduce the number of fatal stabbings? England and Wales' Chief Inspector of Probation Andrew Bridges has warned against "spectacular innovations" and wants the debate to focus on "mundane truths".

One idea, first proposed in 2005, is a response to a grisly mundane truth expressed by Met chief Ian Blair this week - that "the most common knife involved in these deaths is a knife from a kitchen".

The proposal came from three emergency medicine specialists, and it's a simple one: getting rid of the points on the ends of longer kitchen knives.

Drs Emma Hern, Will Glazebrook and Mike Beckett wrote an editorial in the British Medical Journal, suggesting that since "many assaults are impulsive", government action could "drastically reduce the availability" of a "potentially lethal weapon".

So what would the effect have been if, in 2003, the government had persuaded knife manufacturers to offer a greater range of styles, with the pointed-end, long-blade design no longer the default?

Dr Beckett puts it simply: if long pointed knives had become less available, we would have seen fewer deaths from knife injuries.

Of course, there would have been other effects. Other readers of the BMJ were quick to list dishes which need a pointed knife during preparation: butterflying a leg of lamb, carving a forerib of beef, and so on...

However, the idea of pointed knives disappearing completely is not a plausible one - still less the image of policemen requiring every law-abiding home cook to hand over their beloved kitchenware.

In their original article, the doctors argue that most preparation can be done using a combination of a "blunt, round nose" knife and another which, although sharp, is also short enough (under 5cm) to render it less likely to be lethal if used as a weapon.

TV chef Anthony Worrall Thompson agrees, observing that in the Far East, pointed knives are used very rarely and that "for everyday cooking, a square-end or blunt-ended knife is OK".

However, objections to the doctors' proposal have not just been culinary.

A common response has been to point out that inflicting a knife injury is already illegal, and that government effort would be better expended on enforcing existing laws.

This is unsurprising, since the initial article explicitly called for "banning the sale of long pointed knives" - and a call for a ban rarely does more than add another item to the "call to ban..." list.

Calls for bans are also rarely watertight solutions. So while Mothers Against Knives are pro-ban, they are in the minority. West Yorkshire police chief Tom McGhie says it would be "probably impractical and unenforceable in practice".

And MP Roger Gale says that if long pointed knives were banned, "then a panoply of carpenters' and plumbers' 'weapons', such as hammers and screwdrivers, will have to be taken out of circulation".

Dr Beckett denies that this analogy holds, and says that long pointed knives will not always be replaced by similarly fatal weapons. He cites an unintended effect of the switch from coal gas to non-toxic North Sea gas: fewer suicides.

People said, 'oh, if you want to commit suicide, you will find a way.' But it did reduce the rate."

Another unintended reduction in suicide rates has been associated with the introduction of catalytic converters to car. And another drop in suicides came, this time intentional, following the reduction in the quantities in which paracetemol can be bought.

Today, Dr Beckett talks about a change in kitchen culture rather than solely about a ban - and that may be the more intriguing possibility.

It remains a grim picture - the doctors would prefer to deal with non-fatal attacks from cleavers or short pointed knives rather than fatal stabbings.

It's nowhere near a complete solution to the complex problem of knife crime - but neither is it meant to be. Why people carry knives and how they are prosecuted remain different questions.

Rather, says Dr Beckett, it's a possibility for design to help save lives.

"Car manufacturers constantly refine their product to make them less likely to cause harm. Razor blades have been redesigned so as not to slit your throat.

"Kitchen knives could be redesigned so that they retain their cooking function, but are not lethal. But as it stands, you can go into a supermarket and buy for £10 something that's a murder weapon - no questions asked."

BBC

[Ban Hammer 13,651]

big brother. it's not just a reality tv series.

[almaty 19]

i think you should have to fill out an application and have a 3 day waiting period

[Nagishkaw 510]

Anyone can make a weapon. All it takes is a little imagination.

[Niels Bohr 72]

Wackos! I can just as easily kill someone with chlorine, chemicals, as with a knife. Can't these people think? There are so many utilities to be used to kill someone. Ban every single one of them, and there would be other means to kill someone. Your hands, foot, head. What? Chop them all off?

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

You can't ban knives - otherwise its going to become a high crime to take your own cutlery to work.

The govt already tried this after that headmaster got knifed a few years ago - the legislation went into the minutia of defining knife lengths, types of knives that could be carried and the contexts in which they could be carried - (folding knife for fishing ok. Folding knife for picking up and opening your mail at the post office = illegal).

[SteveLaura 0]

1. "[T]he most common knife involved in these deaths is a knife from a kitchen".
2. "[M]any assaults are impulsive".
3. [L]ong pointed knives will not always be replaced by similarly fatal weapons. He cites an unintended effect of the switch from coal gas to non-toxic North Sea gas: fewer suicides.
4. Today, Dr Beckett talks about a change in kitchen culture rather than solely about a ban.
5. "Car manufacturers constantly refine their product to make them less likely to cause harm. Razor blades have been redesigned so as not to slit your throat. Kitchen knives could be redesigned so that they retain their cooking function, but are not lethal."

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I imagine we'll all be eating with plastic sporks before long

[Ban Hammer 13,651]

Anyone can make a weapon. All it takes is a little imagination.

spears, anyone? we gonna ban saplings to prevent them from being made?

[SteveLaura 0]

I imagine we'll all be eating with plastic sporks before long

You know, I just did! Taco Bell's Fiesta Potatoes. As Mexican as Mom's apple pie.

[Marilyn. 340]

They Quickly Learned To Keep The Knives Away From Susan .....

[Peikko 1,575]

I don't think the real idea is to ban knives as such but to change manufacturing so that more knives are produced without points. As they said, it might not stop knife attacks, but it might reduce them enough to be statistically significant so why not? If most knives do not need points in order to perform their function why give them a point?

Of course, that can't be the only strategy put in place because on its own it's not going to stop all knife attacks. It may not be possible ever to stop all knife attacks but why would anyone not put in place any non intrusive measures that might reduce them?

[almaty 19]

lol..that was funny

[Hilarious Clinton 452]

Ban sharp sticks.

[Trumplestiltskin 5,791]

I don't think the real idea is to ban knives as such but to change manufacturing so that more knives are produced without points. As they said, it might not stop knife attacks, but it might reduce them enough to be statistically significant so why not? If most knives do not need points in order to perform their function why give them a point?

Of course, that can't be the only strategy put in place because on its own it's not going to stop all knife attacks. It may not be possible ever to stop all knife attacks but why would anyone not put in place any non intrusive measures that might reduce them?

It really isn't all that hard to give a rounded edge knife a sharp one.