HAVING blundered over handguns the government dithers again over knives.

It is badly out of step with public opinion.

For after the Dunblane massacre and the murder of London head teacher Mr Philip Lawrence, the demand for the outlawing of lethal weapons is one that will not allow concessions or prevarication.

But, of course, though legislation should reflect the public will for it to be effective, its detail cannot simply follow sentiment.

It must provide watertight law that secures convictions and offers maximum deterrent.

Even so, the difficulty that Home Secretary Michael Howard points to in achieving a satisfactory legal definition of so-called combat knives in order to ban their sale, by distinguishing them from kitchen and other working knives, is somewhat exaggerated.

The first are weapons, the rest are tools.

And it is on that basis that Mr Howard's offer, coming evidently from the pressure of the public outcry, to sit down with the Opposition to come up with a workable definition must proceed.

And we expect that Shadow Home Secretary Jack Straw, who has launched a national petition for a ban on combat knives and who is himself a lawyer, to have a ready and credible response to that challenge.

It is necessary that this is done, not for reasons of political kudos but for two sound reasons that concern the voters much more.

The first is the removal of these knives themselves.

For they have no wholesome purpose whatsoever.

They are instruments of death and injury and are designed as such.

And no decent society should allow them - even though the truth may be that most knife attacks are carried out with kitchen and craft knives.

Yet, it is the inherent nature of combat knives as instruments of aggression that marks them out as warranting total prohibition.

For they are a tangible contribution to the culture of violence that decent people are afraid and fed up of.

They are the toys of the immature and the anti-social.

And though all of them may not progress to become murderers like Mr Lawrence's despicable young killer, a sane society does not encourage them or the Rambo culture either.

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