Oh, Apple.

A while back, the company dipped its toe into the #GunSense* arena by banning images of firearms from game previews inside its App Store, leading to hundreds of thousands of dollars in lost revenue for developers of popular first-person shooters, side-scrollers, military-themed strategy games and, ultimately, Apple itself. Since money trumps phony morals, that particular policy was deep-sixed faster than a disarmed serf** on a French promenade.

Now, following news of Tim Cook’s $50,000-a-plate fundraising dinner for the most rabidly antigun Presidential candidate this side of ever, Apple’s taking its anti-rights acitivism one step further: The company is getting rid of the kinda-sorta-realistic revolver emoji and replacing it with a neon green water gun.

A freaking water gun!

From Popular Science:

On its website, Apple says it wants to “ensure that popular emoji characters reflect the diversity of people everywhere.” And with millions of people using emoji in their daily communications, even the smallest changes will have significant impacts on our conversations. Apple’s stances on emoji can’t help but have political ramifications, in other words.

In this case, the change to the squirt gun emoji comes two years after a social media campaign called #DisarmTheiPhone was launched by advocacy group New Yorkers Against Gun Violence, with the goal of pressuring Apple to drop support for the revolver emoji.

Previously, Apple was reported to have pressured the emoji masters of the universe —the Unicode consortium, an international standards body — to drop plans to add a rifle emoji to the set.

Derp.

OK, two things:

One, Popular Science is attributing this decision to the wrong entities, essentially declaring victory for the so-called #DisarmTheiPhone “movement” and its partner group NYAGV. In reality, #DisarmTheiPhone was and remains a trivial Twitter hashtag campaign that was abandoned about a week after it launched.

Similarly, the association alleged to be behind it likely had zero influence on Apple’s decision (potential Bloomberg puppet strings notwithstanding), as this is a change that’s been a long time coming for the California company. As noted, Apple is and has been consistently antigun, terrified of individual responsibility and self reliance in the interconnected world its future profits depend so dramatically upon. There is globalism, and there is tech globalism. It’s a tossup as to which version is more patently stupid.

Two, while this move will have no impact whatsoever on its PC purpose to “reduce gun violence,” it does have the rather insidious potential to make light of a serious matter in the minds of hundreds of millions of children and young adults the world over. See, water guns are toys. Kids point them at their friends and pull the trigger. But real guns — for which this naive nonsense will be substituted in the Pictionary-style communication that is emoji — are not toys. Far from it, firearms are potentially dangerous tools, deadly to the innocent when used improperly. And that improper usage, on a very basic level, is all Apple is encouraging with this move. When Johnny 10-Year-Old, raised on emoji and iDevice, finds a bright green gun or some zombie-themed Hornady hollow-points, he might not take those things too seriously. Indeed, like all such efforts to censor firearms from public consumption, the sole upshot (hopefully not into some poor kid’s developing brain) is the creation and curation of ignorance. Abstinence — and that’s all this really amounts to — doesn’t make children safer. It makes the taboo more mysterious, more enticing, and less familiar. If you want your kid to get the clap, never teach them about sex. If you want your kid to get banged, never teach them about guns.

Of course, Apple will never truly put its money where its progressive advocacy is. The company won’t ban games or apps where guns feature prominently, and you’ll still be able to buy John Wick and Deadpool from iTunes. Better, you’ll continue to have access to great firearms resources, retail stores, and auction sites through iOS’ Safari browser. Sure, you could protest this decision and boycott Apple (knowing, of course, that Google and Microsoft and Amazon et al. are no better on gun rights), but there is no more poignant mockery of such half-hearted #GunSense than to use the very tools built by these various anti-rights companies against them. Hell, I’m writing this post on an iPad, and I just used my iPhone to order 4000 rounds of remanufactured 124-grain 9mm JHP from Freedom Munitions.

Anyways, now that Apple has banned the scary, deadly, mass-murder-promoting cartoon handgun from its emoji lineup, I think it’s only fitting — and morally consistent — that the company also honor the hundreds of thousands of yearly victims whose deaths are likewise “represented” in the standard emoji alphabet. That is to say, as far as I can tell, Apple at the very least must now get rid of the following:

⚡️ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ✈️ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ⛪️ ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

Lightning, explosions, junk food, booze, vehicles, greed, hammers, bombs, knives, tobacco, pills, drugs, drownings, hospitals, doctors, houses of worship, various deadly critters, and hands and feet take countless lives annually, together (and many even separately) dwarfing the roughly 2000 innocents killed each year with firearms.

Worse, if one utilizes emoji combinations, one can get mighty specific about some mighty terrible events. Consider ✈️?? or ?? or ??‍?‍?‍??. How delightfully subversive! We all probably know someone who’s been killed by ??, too. And just recently, ??? made the news.

Looking at that last icon above, a thought occurs: nothing has been more responsible for killing more innocent people over the last (insert huge number here) years than government. Thus, I expect Apple to firmly and boldly address the number-one killer of man in their next update and ban these odious symbols:

?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ?? ??

I just have one more thing to say:

?***

Footnotes:

*A blending of the term “gun control” and the word “nonsense.”

**I am aware that “disarmed serf” is a redundancy. I just happen to like the way it sounds.

***I dont know if Apple added this emoji for its users or for itself. Both seem appropriate. Up mine? Up yours, Cook and Co.

NRA delenda est! The die is cast and I must bow to the wishes of the loudest and cast aspersions against the NRA wishing its demise… OK, fat chance on that!

There is no doubt that the NRA flubbed the PR war with DISCLOSE and that allowed other “Pro 2A” gun groups to attack the organization with full force. Amazingly all that angst about DISCLOSE did not create an organized attack against Democrats in Congress or the bill itself so time is being wasted in crap that has no real use.

I know that idealistic niceties are cute, pink and make bunnies happy, but Political Reality is trench warfare and not quite rose -smelling. Yes all the Constitution is important and yes this bill is bad but this bill has about 90% of passing specially since there has been so little effort by most Americans in defeating it in vitro. The Health Care Bill had the opposition of almost 70% of the country yet it was rammed through and shoved down our throats. Political virgins seem to ignore that but do have the balls to act offended when the NRA, after almost 8 years, millions of dollars spent and almost no help manages to get an exclusion from being shut out of the political discussion. Political Virgins are now offended by this alleged breach of etiquette and idealism against the Constitution but we are talking about the same group that probably believes that good guys only get shoulder wounds that heal in 24 hours, that you can reason with idiots and they will see the light if you show them a copy of the Constitution and bad guys always wear a black hat so you can recognize them.

So what’s next? First, I am sure this major tiff amongst gun owners has not gone unnoticed in the White House and the Anti Gun community and I can bet that plans are already in the making to take advantage of the rift. The chance of bringing down the NRA from inside the gun rights movement is just too good to pass up and they just need a little bit of cash piped to a certain people to make the dream of a Gun Free USA possible.

WINNERS:

The Democratic Party. Gun owners were having so much a good time bashing the NRA that they ignored the DISCLOSE bill itself. It is slated for vote on Tuesday and chances are huge it will pass with or without the NRA exemption. Political speech will be once more tamed to give the Obama administration and Dems in Congress a fighting chance come November.

Gun Owners of America. The premier bunch of No Compromise / Nothing Done and alleged supporters of the Second Amendment will gain thousands of new supporters and millions in cash contributions and a lot from unknown sources.  GOA will be an important part of the manipulated collapsing of the NRA. They will be singled out as the Better Voice/True Constitutional/We Are The World group, given a couple of victories and then dropped once the NRA’s influence is gone. GOA never had and never will have the lobbying ability the NRA has but they will be a convenient tool for the anti gunners in its disarming.

LOSERS

The NRA. By failing to take care of the public Relations side of DISCLOSE and being too damn nice to GOA and assorted jealous idiots, the NRA shot itself in the foot on this one. Expect them to lose about a million members within a year and a half to two years.

NRA Members. By ignoring the darn little email notifications, paying more attention  to the latest reality show and then bitch supreme after they heard about the “carve out” the NRA Members will lose political power in Washington that may take decades to recover.  Those leaving and gambling on GOA will probably find themselves rectally invaded later down the pike.

Non-NRA Gun Owners. By the time they wake up, it will be too late to make corrections. Groups without any political or lobbying ability will be representing all of us and fail miserably at it when their magic funding suddenly disappears and are unable to get any more money or support.

FORECAST

If the onslaught against the NRA continues, it will cease to exist as an effective political force by November 2012. GOA will think it will assume the space occupied by the NRA but will be ignored by the DC insiders since it won’t be able to fit its shoes and the downright rabid opposition by  NRA members. Anti Gun legislation will start coming out again from Congress and by  2020 we will be back to 1968 levels of gun restrictions. Expect a Federal Anti Reciprocity Bill under the cover of the Commerce Clause plus Federal Fund restrictions to be one of the first measures to curtail gun ownership across the USA.

UPDATE:

Gun Rights Examiner informs that DISCLOSE passed in the House. I am reading the text of the bill but cannot find the “carve out” anywhere. I might not be reading it right (I suck at legalese bullshit) and I hope I am not otherwise we are pretty much screwed. It also seems that internet communications (read Bloggers) may have to keep quiet or face penalties. I’ll leave the analysis to better brains.

UPDATE 2:

I was informed by Bitter that the NRA exemption survived the House Vote.

By now you should be aware of the controversy regarding Comedy Central and the censorship of an episode of South Park portraying Mohammed and the threats by some Islamic moron from Brooklyn named Abu Talhal und Falafel et Camel or something like that who posted in his now defunct website that “”We have to warn Matt and Trey that what they are doing is stupid and they will probably wind up like Theo Van Gogh for airing this show. This is not a threat, but a warning of the reality of what will likely happen to them.” The site displayed picture of the corpse of Theo Van Gogh as added visual reference.

The bending over of Comedy Central was their own and the South Park producers Matt Stone and Trey Parker were not involved. Actually they sounded kind of pissed by Comedy Central’s actions and its bout of Political Correctness in a station who has no qualms on letting programs insult other religions.

So in response of these threats and Comedy Central’s sudden testicular vanishing, the “Everybody Draw Mohammed Day” has been set for May 20, 2010.

This should be interesting. I can already hear the cries of racism and intolerance from CAIR and the bowel-less pundits everywhere. Heck, I might get creative myself just to see them anguish and pissed.

Hat Tip to Conservative Scalawag.