An editorial in the May 28 issue of the prestigious British Medical Journal calls for banning the sale of kitchen knives, in order to reduce fatal stabbings. My 1999 article All the Way Down the Slippery Slope: Gun Prohibition in England and Some Lessons for Civil Liberties in America details some of the U.K.'s prior knife controls, including the ban on carrying any bladed instrument of defensive purposes (such carrying makes the knife an "offensive weapon" under the law), and the criminal prison term imposed on a man who carried a small knife for his job cutting newspaper bundles.

UPDATE: This seems a good opportunity to tout Bernard Levine's excellent website on U.S. knife laws. He offers the full text of all state and federal laws, plus many articles on knife history and policy. The laws of many states are much more severe than many people realize, and include bans on the possession of some types of knives, as well as bans on carrying.