The Church of England demands that Britain ban pointy knives – and yes, that includes kitchen utensils

No pointy sticks, please, we’re British

(The article is from 2019, but the battle continues)

[T]hey want to ban pointy knives. Yes, really—churchmen, physicians, judges, and lawmakers want to tightly restrict or completely outlaw the possession of knives with sharp ends.

The latest call for knife controls comes from the Church of England, the nation's officially sponsored religious franchise.

"We the undersigned are professionals and community leaders from across the UK who call on Government to see the sale of pointed domestic kitchen knives as a thing of the past," reads the not-a-parody open letter from the Diocese of Rochester, signed by church leaders, lawmakers, psychiatrists, academics, and the like. "Historically we needed a point on the end of our knife to pick up food because forks weren't invented. Now we only need the point to open packets when we can't be bothered to find the scissors."

(Blunt scissors? Just asking, ‘cause otherwise…)

Just months ago, a Conservative member of Parliament made headlines when he took a different, but equally restrictive, approach to regulating sharp pieces of metal.

"Every knife sold in the UK should have a gps tracker fitted in the handle," insistedScott Mann. "It's time we had a national database like we do with guns."

Mann took a lot of ribbing for the proposal, and even admitted that it was "a bit of a shit idea." But that's just because he was a step ahead of the mob. If he'd stuck with grinding off the pointy bits, he would likely have been hailed as a model of responsible opinion.

After all, U.K. Judge Nic Madge used his retirement speech last year to call for blunting cooking paraphernalia. "Kitchens contain lethal knives which are potential murder weapons and only butchers and fishmongers need eight or 10 inch kitchen knives with points," he said.

"We call on Government to see the sale of pointed domestic kitchen knives as a thing of the past," agrees John Crichton, a prominent Scottish psychiatrist who uses his position as head of the Royal College of Psychiatrists in Scotland to advance his crusadeagainst anything with a sharp tip. "We urge them to take urgent measures to promote the sale of safe kitchen knife designs and restrict those designs which have been used in so many acts of violence."

The problem for Britons is that they're uncomfortably discovering the same frustrating limits that Americans have encountered; laws don't prevent people from doing illegal things, they just define the penalties when people are caught.