Tools of violence and death shouldn’t be part of this light-hearted,ubiquitous lexicon. Apple did the proper thing by replacing the gun for a water pistolEmoji are fun. Guns in America are the furthest possible thing from a joke. That’s why it makes sense that Apple replaced its handgun emoji – yes, they had one – with an innocuous water pistol.
What will folks wishing to express their desire to use deadly force effect? They will either need to hope that their texting buddies maintain sufficient grasp of semiotics to understand the water pistol as a mind-bending signifier, and use actual words to spell out their intentions: “I want 2 exercise my 2nd amendment rights on u”. Related: Water pistol emoji replaces revolver as Apple enters gun violence debate Continue reading...
Source: theguardian.com