A gun-control advocacy group chose an unusual way to get their point across: a pop-up gun shop in Manhattan. NY1’s Lori Chung filed this report.

A pop-up gun store on the Lower East Side had no intention of selling weapons. Instead, a video is intended to persuade would-be first time buyers not to bring guns into their homes.

“Adam Lanza's mom has this in her collection, too, until he took this and a couple of other guns, killed her and went down to Sandy Hook and killed six teachers and twenty innocent children,” the video says.

It's a project called “Guns with History.”  The fake store was set up here last week in a matter of hours, outfitted with cameras and stocked with mock-ups of weapons used in tragic shootings for a social experiment to discourage the idea that a gun means protection.

“From Newtown to tragic murder suicides to other children shooting children, those kinds of events…which people need to think about when you bring a gun into your home," says Leah Gunn Barrett, executive director of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence.

Leaders of New Yorkers Against Gun Violence say their public service announcement is a direct response to recent polls showing that more Americans believe having a gun at home is safer than not. 

“All of the evidence that we know of shows just the opposite," says Gunn Barret. “You're far more likely to harm someone you know or love."

The National Rifle Association is condemning the video, saying in a statement: "It's appalling that the gun control lobby exploits tragedy to further a political agenda. This video reveals their true agenda, which is to ban guns. If gun safety was their main concern they would use their resources to educate people about the safe and responsible use of firearms instead of producing expensive videos to scare people and spread lies.”

Back in November, the NRA called the findings of a Gallup poll that found 63 percent of Americans support the idea of a gun in the home a victory—saying it shows that anti-gun activists should rethink their strategy and the whole point of their campaign.

The PSA is part of a national campaign aimed at areas in particular where the rate of gun ownership is high.