Apple changed the image glyph for U+1F52B 🔫 Pistol from a realistic handgun to a Water Pistol in 2016 (iOS 10, macOS Sierra). At the same time, Microsoft changed from a toy or scifi weapon to a pistol. Apple’s change has been met with much criticism. They vetoed a Rifle emoji 🥆 before, because it would change the meaning of some existing expressions and would ambiguate future communication.

The solution would be to give users a choice by introducing a dedicated Toy Gun, Water Pistol or Squirt Gun emoji. On a technical level, this could be achieved without assigning a new code point, but by using variation selectors instead, i.e. VS-1 U+FE00 🔫︀ and VS-2 U+FE01 🔫︁.

Petitions

• https://www.change.org/p/unicode-remove-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-keep-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-make-apple-bring-back-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-keep-the-gun-emoji-e2fcb57d-b262-485f-9b88-01f15c8e7298
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-don-t-change-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-bring-back-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/change-org-bring-back-the-gun-emoji-and-fix-the-laughing-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/unicode-not-removing-the-gun-emoji
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-bring-back-the-revolver-in-ios-10
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-keep-the-gun-emoji-as-is
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-have-apple-keep-the-gun-emoji-end-the-political-correctness
• https://www.change.org/p/apple-apple-we-would-like-our-gun-rights-back
• https://www.change.org/p/home-depot-add-the-letter-gun-to-the-alphabet
• http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bring-back-the-pistol-emoji
• http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/GiveGunEmojiBack
• http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/restore-gun-emoji-to-iphone