EAST Lancashire knife dealer Frank Kay hits at the bid to halt stabbings with the nationwide amnesty on knives launched today by police .

It is not the knives themselves that the law should be dealing with, but the people holding them, says Mr Kay, one of the country's biggest suppliers of military and hunting-style knives.

Quite so. We too share the belief that knifings - such as the one which killed brave London headmaster Philip Lawrence who died after defending one his pupils from a gang of teenage thugs - are the product of a sick society.

Nonetheless, who would advocate that there should be no hindrance for the arming of the sick with lethal weapons?

One has only to look at the consequence of that misguided outlook in America where gun deaths claim hundreds of lives annually amid an appallingly lax attitude towards the possession of firearms.

True, knives and guns themselves do not kill.

But making them freely available does nothing to reduce the risk of people being killed.

And any move against the use or ownership of knives as weapons - from amnesty to legislation - must be welcome.

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