Its clear the banning of knives is an emotive rather than an objective excercise. Looking at it logically, the things that cause the most harm to the public should be banned or at least tightly controlled first. Looking at the stats of what causes injury and death to people, top of the list would be tobacco followed by alcohol, cars, chip pans, ladders, dogs, buildings more than one storey high, aircraft, ships and doctors. Knives are near the bottom of any list like that. But politics is the art of the possible, trying to ban tobacco and alcohol would be political suicide, too many people like it and the industries that make and are dependent on it are too rich and powerful. Theres no doubt that banning tobbacco would save hundreds of thousand of lives a year and save the NHS millions of pounds but its easier to ban the carrying of knives because theres hardly a knife industry in the UK and the people who like knives keep a low profile and are politically inactive. They are also demonised and blamed, not unlike migrants and ethnic minorities so its easy and politically expidient to take away their rights and gain political captial. We should take a leaf out of the National Rifle Association in the US. They have a strong industry backed by powerful polictical lobbies and are united by common interest. To take a low profile means the next atrocity that involve knives which is inevitable will see further erosion in our rights to possess and carry knives.