The sniper rifle is only four characters, and none of them was made to be a gun. Two come from Japanese and Chinese writing. The others are a bracket and a box drawing line.
︻U+FE3BVertical left black lenticular bracket, the stock
デU+30C7Katakana letter "de", the grip and trigger
═U+2550Box drawing double horizontal, the body
一U+4E00Chinese for "one", the barrel
The bracket ︻ is meant for Chinese and Japanese text written from top to bottom. Turned on its side in a line of text, it looks like the back of a rifle.
Why some guns look glitchy
Bigger guns like ▄︻┻̿═━一 stack combining marks on top of other characters. A combining mark has no width of its own. It draws itself over the character before it. ̿ (U+033F) adds a double line on top and ̷ (U+0337) adds a short slash. Each app decides where to draw them, so the same gun can look neat in one app and messy in another.
◌̿U+033FCombining double overline
◌̷U+0337Combining short solidus overlay
┻U+253BBox drawing heavy up and horizontal
If a gun looks broken in your game or chat, pick a short one without marks, like ︻デ═一 or ︻╦╤─. They have no combining marks, so most fonts draw them cleanly.
Keep it friendly
Next to a cool face in sunglasses, this art reads like a scene from an action movie. Pointed at a real person, it can upset people and break chat rules. For a friendly reply, try the happy text faces.
The short sniper is ︻デ═一: a bracket, the katakana letter デ, a double line and the Chinese character for one. Copy it from this page, or add a face next to it like this: ( -_･) ︻デ═一
Can I put a sniper symbol in my game name?
Often, but not always. Some games only allow letters and numbers, and some count each character against a short limit. Short guns without combining marks have the best chance.
Why does the gun look broken on my phone?
Your phone may lack a font for one of the characters, or it draws the combining marks in a different spot. Try a shorter gun with fewer marks.
Is there a gun emoji?
There is 🔫 (U+1F52B), named "pistol" by Unicode. Apple changed its picture to a water gun in 2016, and most other companies did the same by 2018.