RCMP held a show and tell Wednseday to prove how realistic replica weapons can be following the fatal shooting of a robbery suspect by Canmore RCMP earlier this week.

Officers filled a table of guns – half of them real and half of them fake – to demonstrate how difficult it is to tell the difference between a fake and a real firearm.

And it's even tougher for police officers forced to make a split second decision, often from a considerable distance, said RCMP Sgt. Patrick Webb.

"The biggest thing is luxury of time," Webb said. "If you have only a split second to make a decision, you don't have the opportunity to be able to say, ‘let's talk about this, let's look at that. Is it real?'"

Canmore RCMP shot the 62-year-old man twice in the chest Monday afternoon after he exited his car, which was stopped by police, and brandished what appeared to be a gun.

It turned out to be a replica 9mm Smith & Wesson semi-automatic handgun.

The man - identified by neighbours as Canmore resident Steven Boucher - was taken to hospital where he later died.

Webb said police are often asked why they don't just shoot a suspect in the leg or shoot the gun out of the suspect's hand.

But those questions are unrealistic and are often asked by people who are influenced by movies or TV crime shows, he said.

"When any law enforcement official actually gets to the point of pulling the trigger to use that gun, the intention is to stop the threat," he said. "It is not to try to shoot is out of their hand because that may simply make the situation worse if you miss."

Realistic replica guns are seemingly easy to purchase. A retailer near Red Deer sells all sorts of real-looking "Airsoft" guns on their website.

J.R. Cox, the owner of The Shooting Edge, said some fake guns are so believable that even he has trouble distinguishing them from the real thing.

They are often made that way to satisfy collectors, he said.

"A lot of people may have them because they had a collection, they want to finish a collection off or they like firearms but they don't want to get licences," he said. "So they like the look of them."

Lawmakers have also recognized the problem of replica guns. That's why the penalty is the same whether the criminal is holding a real gun or not.

Webb said it's impossible to know how many criminals are using replica guns to commit crimes because, unless they are caught, there's no way of knowing whether the weapon was real.