As you walked down the street this morning to buy this paper, did you stop to wonder whether any of those you passed were carrying a knife? If you live in the west of Scotland, chances are that if you passed 20 young men aged between 15 and 25, almost all would have been carrying a “blade”, as the cool call them, for “protection”. Glasgow is more like The Sopranos than The Simpsons.

Knowing this, Cathy Jamieson, the justice minister, has announced that there is to be a nationwide knife amnesty running for a month, beginning in May. The aim is to reduce knife crime in Scotland, which is double that of London, and rising.

This is not the first time such an amnesty has been declared, During Operation Blade in 1993 more than 4,500 weapons were surrendered in only four weeks. The police hailed it a success when in the subsequent 12 months murder rates fell by 26% and attempted murder by 19%.

The success, however, was shortlived. In 1996, 227 people were convicted for crimes involving offensive weapons. In 2000 it was 1,137. In 2004-2005 there were 9,545 reported instances of “handling a weapon”, and this after the launch of dozens of well-intentioned initiatives, both national and local, to try to reduce this Scottish scourge.

Nobody is complacent. Last November, Jack McConnell, the first minister, announced a five-point plan for reducing knife crime, which included banning the sale of samurai swords, longer jail terms, more powers of search and arrest, a tighter licensing scheme and increasing the age at which you can buy a knife from 16 to 18.

This latest amnesty, during which knife-carriers can, without fear of prosecution, hand over their weapons in designated safe spots for the police to destroy, does not arrive in a vacuum: one of its purposes is to kick-start a year-long Safer Scotland anti-violence campaign.

Nobody could possibly wish such a campaign ill, particularly when we learnt recently that there are 170 knife-wielding gangs in Glasgow looking for a share of the action on a Saturday night. That is a lot of blades. Add booze and drugs to the knives and it is no wonder that Glasgow, and therefore Scotland, gets such a bad name. Compared with what is going on now, the infamous ice-cream wars look both tame and contained.

I am not, therefore, criticising the latest amnesty in itself. I simply worry that it is of far less use than police and politicians like to assert. One outstanding and immediate problem, which hasn’t been addressed, is how ridiculously easy it is to buy a “battle-ready” sword and have it delivered to your Scottish doorstep. So easy is it that swords are, apparently, a weapon of choice for Glasgow gangs.

I logged onto a website called Glasgow Weapons, a Guide to Surviving Your Trip to Glasgow, Scotland, and found other useful pieces of information, including the correct gangland terminology. A “chib” is for cutting and slicing; a “cosh” or “tool” is for bashing; a “stakey” is a long, stabbing blade and a “spike” is a screwdriver or other thin implement. “It is essential to get the nomenclature correct as a mugger with a stakey may well be slightly offended if he was accused of chibbing you,” I was informed with ironic cheeriness.

Then I clicked the mouse to buy a 27in high-tension carbon steel blade described as “very sharp” from “China’s pre-eminent custom knifemaker, Paul Chen”. I had to tick a box saying I was over 16 and that I should understand that age verification checks might be carried out. I hardly think this rather pathetic stricture would put off any gang member.

Also, nobody during an amnesty gives up a weapon they are intending to use. If a profile were to be drawn up of those taking advantage of this official “blind eye”, I suspect it would mainly be men who have grown out of their gang habit or younger men handing over something to please wives, mothers or girlfriends. In the latter case, I doubt that the weapon they hand over is the only one they have. Indeed, it can’t be since we know that the number of illegal blades in circulation in some parts of Scotland is still on the rise. So while, directly after an amnesty, murder and attempted murder rates may fall, when knife-carrying men don’t hand in their attitude at the same time as their weapons, the benefits are very short-term.

Given what we know about the profile of blade-carriers, another thing that surprises me is that our politicians don’t take the bull by the horns and legislate to ban the sale of knives to anybody under 25, rather than 18. Holyrood has banned smoking, hunting and even fur farming, although there are no fur farms in Scotland. Why not get behind a proper ban that nobody in their right mind would oppose? Eighteen-year-olds have no “right” to carry a knife in a society thatis no longer formed from hunter- gatherers living in caves.

A ban on buying a knife until you were 25 would not solve the problem of illegal sales to younger people, but it would surely be a useful adjunct to an amnesty and the effect rather more long- lasting.

In those parts of Scotland in which badger- or bear-baiting has been replaced by people-baiting and in which drink, substance abuse and the kind of illiteracy that makes thumping somebody the preferred method of communication, we need to make it far more difficult for young men to turn themselves into extras for Kill Bill.

Yet it is at least some cause for optimism that everybody seems to agree that the level of knife crime in Scotland is a scandal. Even Tommy Sheridan, in a rare outbreak of good sense, wants mandatory sentences for young people who carry blades.

However, while I welcome the amnesty, it needs to be accompanied by more radical measures. Come on, politicians, stop pussy-footing about and really get a grip.

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