The gun emoji became a toy on all major platforms everywhere several years ago.

This is surely related to the political climate but I believe the entities involved applied that change worldwide.

It became a toy because Apple unilaterally changed it, and then everyone had to follow because it would otherwise lead to things like this: https://blog.emojipedia.org/content/images/2016/08/emojipedi...

I would love to learn more about backroom emoji politics. It sounds foolish on the surface but emojis have a big reach.

Here's some folks taking emojis very seriously. Including the poop emoji face. It's a good read - https://www.unicode.org/L2/L2017/17393-wg2-emoji-feedback.pd... (pdf)

I watched this documentary https://www.dutch-core.com/programs/documentary/backlight-be...

This is a really good doc on it

https://www.theemojistory.com/

It was a unilateral Apple decision. Other platforms were forced to follow them over the next few years to avoid situations like kids texting each other "Can't want for our class trip to the water park tomorrow <insert squirt gun or real gun depending on font>"

Apple made that change around the same time as the Rio Olympics. In the leadup to the Olympics, there was a push to create an emoji for every event. Unicode 9 added emojis for handball, wrestling, water polo, fencing, etc.

However the almost comprehensive set still had some gaps, because Apple veto'd the marksmanship/air rifle and pentathlon emojis... but not in time to prevent the creation of the corresponding unicode glyphs

I found a summary on what motivated the change, I don't know how accurate that is, but sounds legit https://youtu.be/7SBJr3Zfgl8 - Why Apple removed the gun emoji

Well, yeah, US companies are more than happy to export the US political climate as long as it doesn't directly conflict with local laws.