The rifle emoji has been removed by Apple; though it had been accepted previously however now it seems to be that the delete button has been hit by the company. The next set of emojis that would be present in Unicode 9 will not contain the rifle character as the company has decided that it would be pulled off. There was a lot of opposition that was seen through the voting rights in regards to the rifle emoji.
As per those who were present in the room, the discussion was started by Apple in regards to the removal of the emoji of the rifle. Even though the emoji was already in the encoding process so that it could be released though Unicode 9.0 in June. The consortium was told that the rifle emoji would not be supported in the platform. They also went ahead and requested that the rifle should not be made into an emoji. One of the members had stated that it was not just Apple but eve Microsoft that went ahead and spoke about it; this was a member who was also part of the discussions that was going on.
The influence of Apple that had been reported on Unicode in regards to the rifle emoji being bumped meant that even for platforms which were not Apple based such as windows and Android would not have the gun character available on them. This is because the platform of Unicode 9 is said to be a standard one. It is not the subject of each character but the style that is depicted in specific, this responsibility of the platform vendors.
From Unicode 9, even the pistol shooting spot Modern Pentathlon had been bumped even though it had been proposed previously. Through the Emojipedia, the characters can be seen which is said to be omitted in May that has been reported.
