The linked article doesn’t in fact draw a conclusion - it is simply drawing attention to the correlation - which is quite striking. And while it would have been

The linked article doesn’t in fact draw a conclusion - it is simply drawing attention to the correlation - which is quite striking. And while it would have been equally correct (if not drawing a conclusion) to state that the “trend” (poor choice of word) indicates that states with fewer shooting deaths enact more gun laws (ie. not assuming cause and effect), to do so would have been disingenuous. IF the effect is not the obvious one, then there is possibly a hidden variable driving fewer gun deaths that is associated with populations that prefer more gun laws (even if the laws themselves don’t drive the reduction). At the very least it’s worth further study. And yet here we are discussing the corporate control of emojis on freedom of speech. And while that’s worthy of discussion- we are all still free to use English (or <insert your language here>) instead of a language that is unfree. To the best of my knowledge no one has yet died as a result of misinterpretation of the gun emoji.