UK NEWS

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

Comment Speech Bubble 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.”

WHAT A PRAT!!!

30.05.08, 10:32pm

The answer to everything today is to ban it, or tax it. The knife does not kill, the gun does not kill- it is the human behind the 'weapon that does the killing, as it is the human driving the car. If real sentances were handed out with the reality of the sentance being served then crime would be cut in a moment. All the anti hanging, flogging brigade bring out statistics to say real sentances don't work- what they do is cherry pick the data they want. Go to a country were hanging and flogging is done ie Malaysia and see how different it is, and when they actually do start to be leniant crime goes up!!! Here there is NO reason for criminals to stop- prison is a joke [good meals /tv/ cinema/swimming pools/etc], we have to get real.

• Posted by: dunstun • Report Comment

BAN KITCHEN KNIVES TO SAVE LIVES, SAYS DOCTOR

30.05.08, 6:21pm

FARCICAL ABSOLUTELY FARCICAL.

WHAT NEXT ? Ooooh looks like I'll have to chuck my umberella with the 5 inch steel spike on the end and use my plastic pac a Mac instead.

OH NO !!! Cant do that cos Its got a Hoodie on it !!!!

• Posted by: EmperorMing • Report Comment

WHATS UP DOC !!!!

30.05.08, 5:56pm

A Senior Doctor no less !!

Ban pointy things ??

Great idea Doc , what a prognosis ,

And what about Bugs Bunny , did you both come up with this or did you think about this all by yourself,

I am not in the habit of giving Doctors Advice ? but without writing a prescription for Tamazipan, i would go and lie down in a dark room and rethink the 'Ban pointy things again.'

God Help us !

• Posted by: BratislavaUK • Report Comment

IT'S ALL PART OF THE PLAN

30.05.08, 2:07pm

It's all part of the plan to strip us of anytyhing which we might use to defend ourselves against an oppressive government.

They've taken the guns, next, it's anything vaugly sharp.

If you want to stop stabbing, simply bring back the death penalty for stabbing someone. Thus if you kill someone, you die.

• Posted by: NathanHobbs • Report Comment

BAN KITCHEN KNIVES TO SAVE LIVES, SAYS DOCTOR

30.05.08, 1:47pm

I don't think he's a loon. It was done before in the 17th century when pointed table knives were banned to reduce the instances of stabbing aover the dinner table and we all now happily accept round ended knives to eat with.
The problem, I believe, is with long pointed knives which can penetrate deep into the body. Points on short knives, such as are used for filleting fish, are less likely to cause deep wounds.

• Posted by: Jakanfi • Report Comment

BAN KITCHEN KNIVES TO SAVE LIVES, SAYS DOCTOR

30.05.08, 1:24pm

Dr Beckett is clearly a loon with a mission, everything he thinks is so obviously right it obviously must be done.
Sorry but yes I do use the point - to fillet and de-bone fish.
Also I use chisels and screwdrivers at work, and because of endemic theft. take them to and from work on a daily basis. If I did not my tool box would rapidly become empty.
It may seem like a bright idea, but obviously he has put no thought into the consequences.
While on he might as well have thought of banning pens since they can be used for putting eyes out. Pianno wire and guitar strings can be used to make a garrote so instrument strings must go, and you need wood to make the handles, so that must go also.
I work in a mental hospital and this makes you change your opinion on what can be a weapon drastically.

• Posted by: engineer0854 • Report Comment