As summarised in the article:

• Doctors claim long kitchen knives serve no purpose except as weapons
• 55 out of 108 homicide victims in Scotland were stabbed last year
• Police superintendents say a ban would be difficult to enforce

One wonders if they ever cook for themselves. How do you go about filleting with a short, inflexible knife, or carving a pumpkin with a paring knife, or... Such knives exist, because for hundreds of years, chefs and cooks (both professional and otherwise) have found them exceptionally useful implements.

Latest figures from the Scottish Executive show that in 2003, 55 of 108 homicide victims were stabbed by a sharp instrument - often a kitchen knife.

...with the doctors claiming the knives are used in as many as half of all stabbings...

Half of a half is a quarter, with the best guess being that around 28 homicides involved stabbing with a kitchen knife.

It should also be noted that homicide is not always murder. On 2002 statistics from Scotland, the 125 homicide cases can be broken down into Murder (40), Culpable homicide (31) and... other (which were either murder (38) or culpable homicide (16), representing cases which were either unsolved or pending at 30 October 2003, or where the accused had no proceedings taken against them or were acquitted.

To me this seems to be blaming the implement rather than the culprit. Unless knives are inherently wicked and exude a power of darkness to compell people to commit violent acts with them. Kitchen knives are used in half of all stabbings. And the other half have evidently employed knives of a different sort. Or perhaps forks, or some other sharpened implement. Perhaps even pointed sticks.

Now imagine that long kitchen knives are banned. That's solved the problem. No more stabbing with long kitchen knives.

Scotland's most respected pathologist, Professor Anthony Busuttil, said: "All the statistics show that for the last 15 years, victims of stabbings, whether fatal or seriously injured, are caused by kitchen knives such as steak knives rather than knives bought specially for the purpose."

But I thought you said long knives? How long is a steak knife? Five inches at most?

So, should these be banned, I shall make some simple predictions:
1: Restaurant owners, butchers, fishermen, chefs and anyone who enjoys cooking will be pissed.
2: Blunt trauma homicides will go up as the homicidal grab the nearest thing that can be pressed to service as a weapon. Cricket bat, rolling pin, etc. Though the pointed stick (they're also called cricket stumps) may see a resurgence.
3: It will be completely unenforceable, and no one will pay much heed to the cutlery police.
4: Doctors take a serious look at the 3,013 deaths involving vehicles...