http://www.express.co.uk/posts/view/46266/Ban-kitchen-knives-to-save-lives-says-doctor

We live in strange times.


BAN KITCHEN KNIVES TO SAVE LIVES, SAYS DOCTOR

DEADLY: Kitchen knives among a haul confiscated by the police

Friday May 30,2008
By Tom Morgan Have your say(6)
A SENIOR doctor yesterday called for a ban on long, pointed kitchen knives in a bid to reduce the number of stabbings.

Dr Mike Beckett said the point of a knife served little purpose in the kitchen.

He spoke out after Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir Ian Blair said that kitchen knives were the weapon most commonly used in teenage stabbings.

Dr Beckett, a consultant in emergency medicine at West Middlesex University Hospital, said: “What people want in a kitchen knife is the edge. It is the edge that does the cutting.

“The point on the end serves little culinary purpose, but it is the point that kills people.”

He added: “The life of a kitchen knife is about 10 years before it goes blunt or is broken or thrown away. So it would be possible, over a reasonable period of time, to get these knives out and, of course, to stop selling them.”

Dr Beckett, who first called for a ban two years ago, said: “There have been many instances where people have disturbed an assailant, grabbed a knife from the block in a kitchen and had it turned against them. These accidents would not have happened if there were not pointed weapons in every kitchen.”

He said that while a blunt-ended knife could still be used to kill, it would take more than a “single lunge,” giving a victim the opportunity to fight back or escape. Daily Express chef Antony Worrall Thompson said that pointed knives were essential for specialised tasks such as filleting fish or meat.

But he added: “For everyday cooking you don’t really need a pointed knife. The Chinese, Japanese, the Far East use cleaver-style knives for everything.”

But Tory MP Roger Gale instead urged the reintroduction of the death penalty for murder. “Are we seriously suggesting that the fundamental implements of Western culinary art should be banned?” he said.

“If so, then carpenters’ and plumbers’ weapons such as screwdrivers will have to be taken out of circulation. I would suggest the much more basic but practical response is capital punishment.”

Tom

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