I am receiving some criticism in regards to getting an air rifle and teaching my stepson to shoot, but I do not understand the issue.

In terms of the issue of actually killing wild animals - we will eat any quarry killed, and we will only kill known pests such as rabbits and rooks.  I believe that it is important that if my stepson wishes to eat meat then he should be comfortable with killing and skinning it himself.  Pest control is perfectly normal, most people would happily kill rats or mice in their homes and they don't even eat them!

Ok so what about gun culture? - well as I see it, most boys want to shoot a gun that's why they buy army toys, plastic guns that shoot suckers and many other gun based toys and that is why things like laser quaser and paintball exist.  So really what I am doing is taking the opportunity to teach my stepson how to use a gun responsibly, and that it is not a toy.  Many games exist that are war based and involve killing people, these are far worse!

At the end of the day anything can be used as a weapon if someone wanted to hurt another human or animal, it is purely the individual that makes an item a weapon.