Okay, before we start off, I know that my suggestion will be a pain to program, but I think it would be a good idea.

I've had two ideas with this. One would be a reflex minigame that you play once a day, like a MUC. You go into a bar and get into a knife fight, who depending on the rank you have. For example, a gangster would fight some poor drunk bastard in a bar for a hundred bucks, but a Godfather would fight another Godfather for hundreds of thousands. With each rank, the opponents skill and the game difficulty would increase. After Made, it could be used like a wack/bg wack feature, with a lot more difficulty but no chance of arrest or identification, with no witness report, but it couldn't be preformed on anyone below your rank.

My second thought would be purely defensive, with no minigames. Give anybody who is Capo and below a knife and let themselves protect themselves with that. It'd increase the 'fun' of hunting the inactives and put more sport and risk in the game. Anybody above Capo is likely to have a bodyguard, so it is automatically lost at that rank, and if, like a made man, bought a bodyguard, then their knife would be stolen.

Who would bring a knife to a gunfight?

I meant that it'd give you a better chance of survival in case they have to get close (i.e., run out of ammo, from an RP standpoint) but it gives you a better chance to survive.

If knives are to be added sooner or later other forms of weapons will be requested to be added as well. I'll bet that when knives are approved within the hour someone will be asking for tommy guns. The guns that we have now... I assume that they are pistols of sorts. It would be very conspicuous to walk around the street with a shotgun in my hand. Realistic-ally speaking, people (potential victims) tend to avoid people carrying a big gun. Also there will be a lot of witnesses so as to speak.

Now should the idea becomes real and is intergrated into our lives, the characteristics of the different weapons will have to be taken into consideration. Knives more stealthy but gives higher chance of dying in a wackback, as Anubis pointed who would bring a knife into a gunfight?

Personally I feel things are okay as they are now. Why make things more complicated?