A few days ago, Kiyan Prince, 15, was stabbed to death just outside his school gates in Edgware, north London. Kiyan had finished his studies for the day and left the London academy. A boy simply approached Kiyan and some sort of argument took place. Kiyan ended up being stabbed, right there in front of his friends. According to some reports, he was trying to stop a fight.

Kiyan was, by all accounts, a well liked young man. True, it is exceedingly rare that if a child is killed outside his school the people who knew him queue up to tell reporters that he was quite the most awful person, real trouble and so on. They usually say he was a nice kid and hitherto full of life, etc. But Kiyan’s testimonies seemed heartfelt and sincere.

His headmaster, Phil Hearne, said: “This was a 15-year-old boy, a young man who had the whole world in front of him, and it has been taken away.”

Others paid tribute to his footballing prowess — Kiyan was on the books of the Championship club Queens Park Rangers and was, according to those who had watched him play, a “natural leader” and “immensely talented”.

But you wonder about that argument between the two of them, don’t you? Sooner or later it may be revealed just how inexpressibly, hopelessly petty and moronic the dispute actually was. You marvel, too, at how quickly such a tiff can evolve into a fatality.

It was not always like this, was it? A slapping and a bit of kicking maybe, but to stab someone to death? You wonder, too, if the problem is really about young people carrying knives or if there are instead much darker questions to be asked about “respect”: respect for human life. Children who use knives do know the damage that they can inflict.

There will be official commemorative activity, of a sort, and various kinds of energy expended following Kiyan’s death. First we will worry about those knives. The Metropolitan police are in the throes of a five-week “knives amnesty”: deposit your trusty blade at the nearest police station and no more will be said about the matter.

There may well be calls for more metal detectors to catch out young people who carry knives; and a few schools in London, the stabbing capital of the UK, needless to say have tried compulsory frisking.

What is not at all clear, from my reading of the subject, is what happens to juveniles who are found in possession of knives. Sure, the knives are taken off them, but what happens then? Are they sent home? Or are they just given a bit of a talking to?

The law is still pretty lenient when it comes to knives. It is true that there is a maximum statutory sentence of four years if you are caught with a sword or a kukri or one of those knives you see used to cut up veal escalopes on MasterChef.

But if you are carrying a blade that is less than 3in long you will most likely get off with a caution or, at worst, a 50 quid fine.

Now the blades of choice for young people, I understand, tend to be less than 3in long, but the distance between the epidermis and the aortal arch next to the heart is, in young, fit people, rather less than 2½in.

We may, then, face calls for a total ban on knives being carried around by anyone, when what should really be the case is that we should give the police greater powers to lock up people who are carrying knives inappropriately.

At the last count, 41% of crimes involving knives were perpetrated by that comparatively tiny tranche of the population aged between 15 and 18. According to the statistics, this tranche of the population is responsible for more than 20 killings a year through the use of knives.

But here’s a guess: if government action is taken to address the knife problem in the wake of Kiyan’s death, it will be broad brush and more likely to result in the conviction of Gordon Ramsay, making his way home after a long night at his Royal Hospital Road restaurant, than in the apprehension of some little yob with a 2in flick knife concealed in his Stone Island anorak.

I would suggest the problem is a much deeper one: a question about the psychological readiness to fight or to maim.

Not much attention is paid to the number of Somalian immigrants there are in the UK, either. This is politically tricky territory. The killer of Kiyan Prince might be a Somalian kid.

One should not, of course, blame an entire community for the alleged crime of one of its members, but there is a positive correlation between Somalians and incidences of crime in our southern inner cities.

I do not know why this should be so, except to hazard a guess about the lawlessness and viciousness of present day Somalia.

The appalling state of the country is the sole reason we let so many Somalians in (200,000 by one count) and then cannot send them back. It may also at least partly, in this case, answer that question about the readiness to fight and to maim.

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