Emojis featuring guns and rifles won’t be available anymore, after tech companies decided against them in the wake of the Orlando shooting and the political push for a way to restrict gun access.
ABC News reported on Monday that Unicode Consortium, which sets standards for the characters used to illustrate electronic communications like texting, made the decision after Apple, a voting member of the group, said it was worried the depictions. Also gone is an emoji showing the pentathlon, which pictured someone firing a rifle.
The changes will take effect in Unicode 9.0. According to ABC, the big tech companies provide input into what emoji candidates to roll out, and after that, each company can make tweaks for their own users.
However, gun aficionados may still find a way to express themselves, as Emojipedia speculates the last minute change could result in the characters still being available as pictographs, although not in color. They also won’t be shown on emoji keyboards.
