Nintendo Zapper. (Handout)

A video game club at a Halifax university had to take down and redesign its posters because the students' union deemed a cartoon image of a toy gun a violation of its policy.

The SMU Gaming Society at Saint Mary's University had prepared posters advertising a gaming event at a student bar. They featured a joystick, a mug of beer and a Nintendo Zapper — a grey and orange plastic gun that was sold with the original Nintendo systems in the '80s. It's the accessory used with the popular game Duck Hunt.

But the Saint Mary's University Students' Association (SMUSA), which governs student societies, called the image a violation of the union's poster policy, which forbids images that damage the university community's reputation, reports the SMU Journal, an independent student newspaper.

Writing at Forbes.com, video game journalist Michael Peck poked fun at the situation.

"Now college game clubs can't mention guns, because the mere sight of a video game weapon might induce crazoid gamers to disembowel their fellow students with plastic lightsabers. I'm sure the good citizens of Halifax will sleep better tonight, knowing that they've been saved from the Nintendo Apocalypse."

The Zapper has since been replaced by a Power Glove, another Nintendo accessory.

Any ratified campus society agrees to follow SMUSA rules. Ratification grants a group access to funding, campus space and other benefits.

The SMUSA didn't immediately respond to QMI Agency's request for comment and no contact information for the SMU Gaming Society was listed online.