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Billionaire Elon Musk posted a cryptic gun emoji post on his social media platform X today, shortly after President Joe Biden spoke about rising gun violence in the US.
“More children are killed by gunshot in America than anywhere else,” Biden said in a rousing farewell speech at the Democratic National Convention in Chicago.
“That’s why Kamala (Harris) and I are proud to have passed important gun legislation… Now is the time to ban assault weapons,” Biden told the meeting, less than a month after withdrawing from the White House race against Donald Trump and pass the torch to his vice president.
As Biden spoke, Musk, who officially endorsed Trump last month, dropped an emoji-filled post on X without elaborating. The emojis were of guns and a dancing man.
🕺🕺🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🔫🕺🕺
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) August 20, 2024
“The gun emoji used in 2016 marked the rise of the woke mind virus,” he said in another post.
In the past he has described the “woke mind virus” as a threat to “modern civilization.”
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In 2016, Apple changed its gun emoji for the first time from a realistic-looking revolver to a water pistol following a series of US shootings. Samsung, WhatsApp and Google also later switched to a water gun emoji.
Twitter, now X, had switched to a water pistol in 2018. However, it recently replaced the ‘water gun’ emoji – which was depicted as a colorful children’s toy – with an emoji depicting a real gun.
Gun violence in the US
According to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), a website that tracks shootings in the US, more than 10,000 people have been killed by “intentional, malicious or accidental shootings” so far this year.
So far this year, at least 19 people have been killed in 352 mass shootings in the US. According to the GVA, 656 mass shootings killed 40 people in 2023.
According to the GVA, more than 900 children aged 17 and younger, including 154 under the age of 11, have been killed in shootings this year.
