'GUNS and knives take lives' was the message given to pupils at Darton High this week.
A team of officers from South Yorkshire Police's armed support group visited the school to talk to youngsters about gun and knife crime, their consequences and how to stay safe.
They delivered the message to a hall full of year nine children on Wednesday and certainly got their attention with an array of weapons taken in to illustrate the team's 'prevention rather than cure' message.
PC Simon Harrison said the presentation came about about after one of the officers own observations. "A colleague noticed that most of the jobs we were called out to where someone is spotted with a gun was a teenager with a BB gun," he said.
"We did some research and it turned out 52 per cent of those call-outs involved people under 18 carrying an imitation firearm.
"Five years on from doing this talk and that figure has now dropped to 12 per cent so it really does work coming into schools and talking to the kids."
