When is a air gun better than a real gun .

If you are going to introduce some one to guns or want to cut your shooting cost down . This clip might interest you . Marvin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4JavM0AT3-E

Well first off, definitions. IMO both are real. The air gun is no less real in this day and age than the centerfire rifle. Both are capable of amazing accuracy with the right shooter, load.

I am not a whole lot into pistols, well I have a few, recently bought the Beeman P17 single shot single pump Pnuematic. Essentially a cheap chinese knockoff of a 2-300$ german target pistol that sells for 39$. Sweetest trigger on any gun I have ever owned bar none. Not to soft, not too hard, nor long, nor short. It is just right. It is a pleasure to shoot.

Being able to shoot it in my living room into a cardboard box filled with pieces of rubber floor mat, that is priceless. I have a 9mm Hipoint, a SA 1911 in .45 acp, a CZ-52 in 7.62x25. Can't shoot any of them in the house safely, and if you could you'd blow your ears off. Not to mention the powder smoke.

Airguns have their place, PERIOD. And I am a firm believer in them.
I have loved them since I first bought my Sheridan Blue Streak back in the mid 70's. And yes ol blue is still with me, still shoots just as straight and hits hard enough to kill with only 3 pumps if you put it in the right spot.

Powder burners have their place too. They are just different tools for different places.

GH nailed it.
Best, Thomas.

"If you are going to introduce some one to guns or want to cut your shooting cost down . "

Add low noise level, far more safe places to shoot without traveling far if at all, no worries about shoots fired at an upwards angle when hunting squirrel or birds traveling any great distance with lethal force ( a friend accidently wounded a lady on the next farm over when a .22 bullet passed through a rotten spot in a fence post on a rise that he had tacked his target to.)
Lack of long range lethality in the smaller bores is a plus , accidental injuries are almost always minor, only serious injuries are likely to be reported.
That said there have been fatalities even from relatively low powered airguns. The Daisy 880 was the subject of lawsuits and a redesign after around a dozen fatal injuries to children.
A air pistol, brand and model unspecified, was used in a triple murder some years back, all three victims shot in the brain while they slept. So as Ghost pointed out these are real guns.

Most Replica air pistols are low powered and unlikely to cause serious injury so long as eye protection is worn. These are the most useful in practicing for using the real handguns they are patterned after.
When younger I learned to shoot a double action revolver by pouring thousands of .22 pellets through a early model Crosman 38 C, the same CO2 revolver along with the 38T, used in indoor training by some police departments and apparently also used as a trainer by the USAF.

The reason i got into air rifles is i simply REFUSE to pay .22 ammo rates these days, and stand in line over a box of shells. I sold all of my rimfires, don't own a single one. Now i own 2 Air Rifles, kinda reminds me of how it was with 22 when i was younger, 9.99 for a true brick of 500, there was always a pallet load on an end cap in Kmart. I'll stick with air guns from here on