Apple Just Took An Important Stance Against The Gun Emoji

If you think emoji can't be political, think again. Yesterday, Apple announced that it would be adding more than 100 diverse and gender-inclusive emoji to its emoji keyboard in iOS 10. That, in itself, is fantastic. But Apple also made another important change: It's eliminating the gun emoji and replacing it with a friendlier water pistol, instead. Apple made the change following a push from the advocacy group New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. The group asked Apple, in an open letter, to "remove the gun emoji from all your products as a symbolic gesture to limit gun accessibility." Apple was certainly in line with the idea — it actually opposed the addition of a rifle emoji back in June. Instead of the pistol, your phone will soon feature a green and orange water gun in its place. But Apple is actually not the first to make this kind of switch. Microsoft swapped its real-looking pistol emoji for a colourful toy gun version in Windows 10, BuzzFeed reports. Folks on Twitter are largely poking fun of the change, or pointing out that emoji guns aren't the source of our nation's gun violence problems. But, however small, it's a good move. It's one less platform that shows that gun use is okay. And frankly, no good came from that emoji, anyway.