An image of a young boy carrying a toy AK-47 in Sydney’s Martin Place has prompted the NSW Government to consider regulating the sale of replica guns.

Television footage and images captured the boy on Thursday, walking with an adult and another child in a pram, near the Lindt Cafe siege site, with his finger on the trigger of a gun with a ‘fully loaded’ magazine that appeared to be a toy.

Police expressed concern over the image, that stirred a social media frenzy Thursday morning.

• Tune of revenge? Katy Perry vs Taylor Swift
• ‘F*** off!’: senator tells fake medieval town criers
• ‘They’re awful’: Abbott’s wind farm confession

“In this heightened terrorism environment, if someone sees what looks to be a real firearm, regardless of the age of the person carrying it, they’re going to have genuine concerns,” Police Association of NSW president Scott Weber told the Daily Telegraph.

“I think firstly we need education for parents and children and secondly, perhaps, very real-looking replica guns don’t need to be on the market,” he said.

NSW Police Minister Troy Grant said the regulation of firearms, community safety and security was the government’s “number one priority”.

“The government is aware of this issue and is considering how to address it in legislation,” Mr Grant said.

Mr Weber called for toy manufacturers to reconsider supplying realistic guns to the domestic market.

In 2010 the State Government amended the legal definition of an imitation weapon, following years of confusion, to be “an object that, regardless of its colour, weight or composition or the presence or ­absence of any moveable parts, substantially duplicates in ­appearance a firearm but that is not a firearm”, the Daily Telegraph reported.

Manufacturers of children’s toy guns can avoid having them labelled as replica by writing “toy” on the packaging or putting a removable plug on the barrel which would identify them as toys.

Debate about the issue sparked social media discussion, as well as on two rival TV breakfast programs, The Today Show and Sunrise.

What was going through the head of that parent allowing their young son to walk through Martin Place holding a toy gun? #StupidPeople

— MLo (@MLoParis) June 10, 2015

@TODAYshow #ToyGun kid walking around holding it the way he was? In Martin Place? Anyone would look twice. Toys need to look like toys!!

— Nadia (@Ambo_Nads) June 11, 2015

Overreaction? Boy carrying toy gun in Martin Place prompts NSW govt to consider laws on sale of realistic toy guns pic.twitter.com/bLLkpboRYx — Sunrise (@sunriseon7) June 10, 2015

@sunriseon7 Typical of Koches lot. It’s a toy gun! Getta grip and stop turning Sydney siders into victims and ‘fraidy cats #auspol #nswpol

— Craig Golding (@Hunt4eva) June 11, 2015