X replaced the water pistol emoji with a regular gun, for some reason
![Vector collage of the X logo.](https://cdn.vox-cdn.com/thumbor/wCHc1tPtG7Vn-sxYgNP9D4YnZz8=/0x0:2040x1360/1310x873/cdn.vox-cdn.com/uploads/chorus_image/image/73478568/STK160_X_TWITTER__C.0.jpg)
Years after Twitter replaced the pistol emoji with a green-and-orange water gun, X has decided to change it back to a regular handgun. An X employee announced the change in a post last week.
The company hasn’t explained the change, but it feels on-brand for Elon Musk’s social network. Twitter originally switched its emoji to display a water gun in 2018, following others like Google and Facebook. (Apple made the switch in 2016; Microsoft was a brief hold-out.)
Eventually, the Unicode Consortium, which decides which emoji get made in the first place, followed the...