Apple Replacing Hand Gun Emoji With a Water Pistol

Apple will be replacing its hand gun emoji with a far less controversial bright green and orange water pistol in the next version of its iPhone and iPad operating system, iOS 10.

The move is one of a number of emoji updates due this fall which include the addition of women in stereotypically male professions such as construction work or coding, CNN reports.

Earlier this year, a proposal for an Olympics-inspired rifle emoji was opposed by Apple and Microsoft.

A number of legal issues have arisen from the use of the hand gun emoji. In February, the Washington Post reported that a 12-year-old girl in Fairfax, Va. was charged with threatening her school and computer harassment because she posted a message on Instagram that included a bomb, knife and gun emojis and the phrase “meet me in the Library”.

In a separate New York case last year, a teen was charged with making a terrorist threat after he wrote a Facebook post that included three gun emojis pointing at the head of a police officer emoji. The teen ultimately was not indicted on the charge.

[CNN]