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Philly Supermarket Stops Selling Realistic Toy Guns After Weekend Protest

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PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- A shopper can pick up a can of Pringles, diapers, order a sandwich or duke it out with a super boxing champion. But no longer sold inside of the Lehigh Avenue Supermarket in North Philadelphia: realistic toy guns.

A video posted on social media by Antione Johnson this weekend shows a group of anti-violence activists confronting the store owner about selling the toy handguns along with toy revolvers equipped with scopes and pretend silencers.

"We are living in a dangerous time right now if a kid came outside and pointed that in my face I would have thought it was real and gave him everything I had on me," said Anton Moore, founder of Unity in the Community.

Moore said the goal was to not bully the store but to make sure the owner realized that selling realistic toy guns actually violates city law.

"What we need to do is to get the city and L&I to enforce the law," said Moore.

At one point demonstrators used a marker to show how young buyers could further disguise this toy as the real thing

According to those activists, the store owner was hesitant at first but ultimately decided to halt sales and pull the toy guns from the shelves.

There are now blank spots on the wall where they used to hang. Moore hopes that more stores still selling these toys get the message.

"The parents you know gotta be responsible as well your kids are purchasing these guns you got to tell them do not purchase them and we can not be patronizing these stories that sell these guns as well," said Moore.

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