Well no shit. He’s asking why it was written that way. It’s not like prop master forgot to put one in his holster before each take.
Because it was written that way.
Then it was a conscious decision that has some sort of relevance. What the hell? Even if it was an unconscious decision it has some sort of relevance.
Maybee.
Given the way that Pixar analyzes the details in their movies, I think it’s definitely a choice to not give Woody a gun. Somewhere along the line, a designer made the choice that Woody has a holster but not a gun. I do think it’s plausible that a toy that old has lost that accessory, but in a larger sense I agree with Odesio that someone along the line chose that, the same way that the costume designer in The Andy Griffith Show decided that Barney but not Andy should wear a gun regularly.
Didn’t bother to read the linked thread. Toys given to children tend to lose accessories (such as tiny pistols) and I think this is the crux of the biscuit as it were. 
The problem is that it appears that Al was attempting to make Woody look like he was new in box (NIB). Why wouldn’t new Woody have a gun?
My solution is that there was a limited run of Woody’s that were slightly different from the others, and mistakenly didn’t come with a gun. This is the only way to make Woody’s rarity make any sense, being a doll from a once popular cartoon show.
He was originally was looking for a NIB version, but found it was very difficult. He did get his hands on a box that was in good condition, or at least knew where to get one. So he started looking for any Woody of that rare model (which probably also had a mistake of some sort). He had a plan to restore it so that it appeared to be NIB. The idea was that whoever bought it would not be able to check and see if it was new very quickly, and he’d have already skipped the country with their money before they knew he was a fraud.
Naw, the gun was sold separately.
And on this tangent, it appears that the French* subscribe to the “empty holster” philosophy. Looks kinda silly/stupid to me.
*They also seem to not grasp the difference between a country boy and cowboy, but that’s a whole 'nother subject.
They probably would have never have given him a holster, but they needed somewhere for him to put the match, and a holster made the most sense. In TS1, the lack of a gun to put there is immaterial.
When TS2 comes out, they suddenly have the problem of “original condition” and what parts are needed to complete the set. A gun complicates matters more than is worth dealing with, so it was simply ignored, completely.
It’s not the only thing Pixar chose to ignore because dealing with it would be too complicated. In TS1, when Buzz is showing off his wings, the wings would have hit the car track when he flipped through the loop. To make it through, they just made a few camera cuts and: boom, problem solved. Same with a group hug Buzz gives: his arms weren’t long enough, so they just stretched them and hid it behind the group he’s hugging.
He’s got Woodies and guns on the brain… sounds Freudian.
Did they ever address the hole that Sid burned into Woody’s forehead?
No, and they also gloss over the “rules” governing when a toy can animate, and what happens when toys break those rules.
As a kid, I had a cowboy puppet. His gun and holster were a single piece of fake leather cut out to form a silhouette of a holstered pistol. Something like that would have made sense on a rag doll like Woody, but that would have left them no place to put the match for the rocket scene.
I thought they fixed that in TS2, but it’s blurred I’ve seen it so many times.
This has bugged me for AGES.
It looked like Buzz had a laser pointer, capable of painting a red dot on a target. Not something I’d expect to see incorporated in a toy.
Of course, that hazard pales in comparison to the ability to start fires with sunlight focused through Buzz’s clear plastic helmet.
It’s not a laser! It’s a . . . light bulb that blinks!
Laser envy.
When Buzz first meets Woody, doesn’t he “target” Woody’s forehead with a visible red dot (which I guess foreshadows what Sid later did with the magnifying glass)?
It’s not a weaponized laser, to be sure, despite Buzz’s early delusion that it was.
Because state laws prevent issuing a concealed/unconcealed weapons permit to an inanimate object like a doll.
I’m pretty sure kids TV these days includes plenty of violence and associated weaponry.
I remember this explanation as well. I think it was from John Lasseter’s interview on Wait Wait Don’t Tell Me.