Its the meaning of the ideas being communicated not individual glyphs. A gun emoiji does not neccesarily mean "lets shoot up the place". A water pistol is similar enough to a gun that anyone who has that meaning in mind can easily just use it and be understood. Or they could just use something else with an understood meaning. After all, many emoiji have context specific meanings. An eggplant is not just an eggplant.
Its just downright silly to ban things at this level of abstraction. It wont stop people talking about guns.
Indeed.
The whole reason I value freedom of speech is not a love of certain voices, but because of the power of speech to effect change.
Took me a long time to realise that while all improvements are change, not all change is an improvement. Dictators fear free speech because it has the power to take away their power. That power can also be used, has been used, to take away democracy.
Obviously, in a vacuum, an emoji does not do anything at all. Though emojis are used in context to convey intent, just as words are. Would you say words do not encourage armed violence? Sure, the dictionary does not, but when pieced together, narratives can be created that do. That is not to say we should ban words, but lets not kid ourselves and pretend they have no power at all.