It shouldn’t have been there to begin with.
You might remember this announcement about the introduction of 73 new emojis, soon to be 72.
Spotted on JOE.ie, the rifle emoji has been banned by tech organisation, Unicode, otherwise known as the emoji Gods.
The rifle had originally been given the go ahead but the decision was reversed at a quarterly meeting held in May.
Image via Ars Technica
According to Buzzfeed, the ban was influenced by Apple, one of Unicode’s largest companies, whose members have voting privileges.
Apple executives reportedly initiated the debate and said that the rifle emoji would not be supported on its platforms.
Neither Apple nor Unicode has elaborated on the reasons why the emoji was taken off the list.
The pistol or handgun emoji remains and nothing has been said on that matter by either organisation as of yet.
