Ok, i enjoyed TSI. In it, Woody had an empty holster. That makes perfect sense, because I remember little things like guns were the first things lost on toys like that.
But in TSII, Woody is brought back to "fully restored’ and still no gun, and he is shown in a puppet cartoon- again, with from what I could see- an empty holster. 
PC run amuck?
Maybe the snake in his boot ate it.
I opened the thread to say the exact same thing about guns being lost within seconds of opening a toy. My Lone Ranger went around with empty holsters for nearly as long as I had him.
You bring up an interesting point about Toy Story 2 though. Does Annie have any guns? (The girl toy character? Is that her name?) Buzz Lightyear has a laser, but I guess that could get a distinction from a gun. The army men have guns, so I don’t know if it is PCness at work, or perhaps an oversight?
Her name was Jessie, and she doesn’t seem to have any of the sort. Woody doesn’t seem the gun-toting type, but that sure doesn’t explain the holster. I would bet that it’s an oversight, b/c I never noticed he had one, but now it’s glaringly obvious. You’d think the folks at pixar who have to animate every little part of a character over and over would be on top of something like that. One little pistol couldn’t hurt anybody, could it?
Arguably, in a universe where toys can talk, they can also have a show that deliberately had no guns in a kiddy cowboy puppet series.
My guess is it was a deliberate choice, possibly even an insistence by Disney, that was also deliberately never drawn attention to.
The holster, by the way, is part of a minor plot point involving the matchstick.
I don’t think it would be an oversight; Sid puts the match in Woody’s holster when he is intending to come back and burn him later (Woody remembers the match later and tries to light the rocket with it). I would imagine it’s a conscious decision on the part of Disney/Pixar, possibly because they didn’t want a gun and possibly because the idea of a toy with a missing accessory adds texture to the whole thing. There will have been a meeting in which the holster was chosen from a selection of candidate designs; arguments will have been made as to whether it should go on the right or left hip - I find it absolutely inconcievable that the gun was omitted through simple oversight.
It’s - initially at least, although a significant change will occur later in the narrative - a castration metaphor: by being deprived of his gun, Woody has obviously been symbolically unmanned, and the fact that he only has an empty holster {a repository for a phallic weapon} only reinforces the filmmakers’ point that Woody {note the clever counterpoint between his name and his evident lack of conventionally heterosexual masculine prowess: he evidently feels obliged to compensate at least nominally} clearly feels overshadowed by Andy, his erstwhile “father”, in a classical Oedipal rivalry for Little Bo Peep.
Witness his inability to transact any kind of mature relationship with Peep; when the more obviously “manly” Buzz arrives, apparently secure in his masculine heterosexuality with his constantly brandished laser, Peep transfers her allegiances to him {“Looks like I’ve found my moving {underlining mine} partner.”}. Woody’s subsequent conflict with Buzz, culminating in Buzz’s symbolic death with his fall from the window, is a clear transference of this Oedipal rivalry: through enacting this Woody apparently regains his sexuality, as is underlined when he places the {almost too obviously} phallic match in his holster when he rescues Buzz from the rocket.
Yet this point in the narrative marks a curious shift, as both protagonists’ sexual allegiances begin to markedly alter: Buzz’s laser may not work, to his dismay {a reference to his previously assumed heterosexuality}, but his rocket, ignited by Woody’s match, indicates a powerful switch in both their sexualities. Witness their flying scene {a clear sexual metaphor} together, in which Buzz both literally and figuratively grasps Woody by the waist and takes him from behind. This marks the conclusion of the narrative, with all illusory Oedipal conflicts resolved and both comfortable in their new-found homosexuality, as is evidenced in the closing scenes where they are depicted lounging happily on the bed together, secure in their sexual identities.
/Applause
You watched Deadwood last night, didn’t ya?
Have you ever been to Disneyland? They have so many toy guns for sale. Once I looked over at the shop, either in Frontier Land or maybe New Orleans Square, and there was your typical family of four that you might see in an add for Disneyland. Dad and the son were checking out the long flint lock rifles and mom had the smallest pistol while the daughter, who was older than the son and wearing mouse ears had a slightly longer gun.
Disney is not anti-gun. Not in the parks at least.
Case Sensitive - that is wonderful!
However- it really doesn’t answer the question. The original Woody “NiB” (“New in Box”) would have had to either had a gun, or a cute backstory to explain it’s loss.
::acts like Woody was a real action figure::
Well, you see, the character of Woody had a gun in the first few episodes, but due to an oversight, there never was any such thing a Woody action figure with a gun, not even at the prototype stage. The episodes containing the use of guns to shoot down chandeliers, and other gun tricks that did not involving direct shooting other characters were not shown in syndication, except in Costa Rica, and French Polynesia.* Fans from those two countires are quite irate that the reissued anniversary Woody action-figure will not include a gun in the holster, since that is the way they remember him. The figure will be avalible in both black & white paint jobs, and a “perfect reproduction” paint job, avalible late next year.
*As for the infamous “Paste-Pot Pete” episode, made late in the series production, well, sometimes it is best to just forget.
Ok, TSII apologists, help me explain away two things that bothered me about the movie (I caught it last night too).
One, in the scene where Woody discovers all the merchendising tie-in toys with his image on them, how come those particular toys don’t also come to life?
Two, I don’t get the impression that the toys automatically lapse into stillness when humans are around, more that it’s a rule they have to follow. So what about the toys like the new Buzz and Zurg (sp?) that don’t know they’re toys? How come they don’t move in front of humans?
See, every boy in the area is clamoring for a “Buzz Lightyear”, so there is a huge ammount of energy around. Not so many kids know about Woody. Sure, if there were some fanboys around, it would lend enough energy, but there isn’t.
Purely good luck.
I just pulled all of that out of my hat. Or should I say, ass? Anyone know, what are expressions for making up an explination right on the spot?
To add more confusion, one of Woody’s phrases when a child pull’s his string is “Reach for the sky!”. This is a popular phrase used by cowboy’s when pointing a gun at someone, and is more colorful than the very literal phrase “Put your hands up!” more commonly used by outlaws.
But Woody has no gun, so why should any outlaw “reach for the sky” when Woody tells him to? Perhaps he is using the phrase as a motivational affirmation, such as “reach for the stars!”?
Or it could be PC run amuck.
Well the lyrics to Woody’s Round-Up (the tv show that the puppet came from) the last verse is
Bad guys go running
Whenever he’s in town
He’s the rootinest, tootinest, shootinest, hootinest cowboy around
Woody’s Roundup
That is going to be tough without a gun.
Not if Case Sensitive is wrong about Woody being emasculated.
Enjoy,
Steven
Because they’re all merchandise, not the toys themselves. As is consistent in both Toy Story movies, only toys that are representing a character themselves come to life (though admittedly Etch-A-Sketch is a small stretch). You might as well ask why the Lincoln Logs in Andy’s bedroom don’t go rolling around on their own.
Instinctual behavior – all toys know, at some level, that the rule is for them to flop still like inanimate objects when people are around. Otherwise, you’d have newly-opened toys coming to life in bedrooms across the nation, making for a bad remake of Child’s Play.
Buzz and Zurg were too busy chasing each other to pay attention to this instinct. 
See, I had kinda thought of that theory, that only “character” toys came to life but the Etch-A-Sketch kinda ruined it for me. Plus, the sheparedess is actually a lamp.
That’d actually be cool if the Lincoln Logs and Legos came to life. I’m envisioning some sort of hive-mind with the individual pieces coming together to form an intelligent whole. Enough Legos and you’ll get a gigantic super mind that could take over the world… But that’s be a whole different movie. 
Am I the only one who never noticed this, and didn’t care, but now wont sleep tonight?
I mean it was a good movie don’t get me wrong, but it never occured to me.
Legos being of a hive mind and forming to what ever they need to become.
Is this more Akira-ish or Transformer/MMPR/D.I.C.E.?