Doctors seek kitchen knife ban
Leading doctors have called for long and pointed kitchen knifes to be taken off the shelves to help prevent violent crime and deaths from stabbing.
Practitioners at West Middlesex university hospital said they have witnessed a rise in violent crime in recent months with sharp kitchen knives now involved in almost half of all stabbings.
Their research has been published in the British Medical Journal and continues to reveal that many attacks are committed impulsively and often prompted by alcohol or drugs, a detrimental situation frequently made worse by the at-hand availability of kitchen knifes.
The authors of the BMJ report argue that these dangerous knives should be banned in the UK as a result of this trend, but also because there is no actual reason for long pointed knives to be publicly available as they are of little practical value in the kitchen.
A survey questioning ten top chefs from around the UK revealed that none of the chefs believed such knives were essential kitchen utensils, since short blades are just as, if not more, effective than long knives.
A BMJ spokesperson said that short pointed knifes should be the only available blades.
The spokesperson said that while small blades could be criminally used to cause a substantial superficial wound, the outcome would be far better than the resulting wound caused by a pointed long blade that can pierce the body like “cutting into a ripe melon”.
“The Home Office is looking for ways to reduce knife crime,” added one of the BMJ report’s authors.
“We suggest that banning the sale of long pointed knives is a sensible and practical measure that would have this effect.”
A member of the Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) added: “ACPO supports any move to reduce the number of knife-related incidents, however, it is important to consider the practicalities of enforcing such changes.”
Action needs to be taken immediately, urged the authors, particularly to tackle the worrying use of knives among adolescents.
A reported 24 per cent of 16-year-olds have been found to carry weapons, primarily knives, at one time or another.
