It might be a sad decision to make, but nothing was 'dumbed down'. IMHO the 'correct' solution, if you want to remove the handgun picture is to remove it from

It might be a sad decision to make, but nothing was 'dumbed down'. IMHO the 'correct' solution, if you want to remove the handgun picture is to remove it from the emoji keyboard (and possibly refuse to render it) and introduce a new water pistol emoji.