A community activist is calling for the sale of toy guns to be banned, claiming that they could result in a tragedy.

And youth worker Carlton Simmons said the toys are also sending out the wrong message to children, teaching them that violence is acceptable.

Mr Simmons, who runs the Youth On The Move organisation which helps disaffected young people find work, made the call following two incidents on Court Street during the Bermuda Day Parade on Monday.

In the first incident he said a young child fired a cap gun in the street, causing alarm among spectators. Later that day he confiscated toy guns from two boys who were playing on the street.

“It occurred to me — what type of vendor would be selling these things to children?” said Mr Simmons, a Corporation of Hamilton alderman who has previously acted as mediator between rival gangs.

“Bermuda needs to start practising what it preaches. We can’t tell our youth that guns are bad and violence is bad and then encourage them to go out and point guns at each other and shoot each other. We want the violence to stop, but then teach our children to point guns in each other’s faces.

“Who on Earth would sell toy guns in these times in Bermuda?” he said.

Gun crime has blighted Bermuda in recent years. On the Island 20 people were shot and killed and a further 52 shot and injured between January 2010 and the end of 2013.

“I think that the Minister of Public Safety and the Commissioner of Police need to make a stand on this and ban the sale of these toys. My hope is that there is a ban on these things,” said Mr Simmons.

Referring to the incident in which a cap gun was fired, he said that some people treated the incident as a joke once they realised that the noise was being made by a toy.

“But a lot of people jumped because it really did sound like gunshots,” he added.

“For many in our community, for people who have heard the real thing, that sound is not a pleasant sound, and can bring back a lot of trauma for them.”

Ms Simmons also warned that the toys could provoke a real-life gun battle if they were mistaken for real weapons.

“When I confiscated those toy guns, after getting permission from the boys’ mothers, I just put them in my pocket,” Mr Simmons said.

“But what would have happened had I just forgotten about them and, some time later, pulled them out? What would have happened if it had gotten darker and someone had mistaken them for real guns?

“It only takes one person to make a mistake for the whole country to go into anarchy.”