In the Imperial War Museum,London,there is a letter

[DT Fletcher]

penned by a young lady evacuee, to her parents,She is obviously a air-gunophile...
see attached
https://imgur.com/t56NOqp
love the dinky illustrations-particularly the air gun one! Riddled with BBs!

I think that the young lady was referring to anti-aircraft guns; which, from my experience doing searches, are often referred to as "air guns".

Reminds me when I was looking at the history of George IV. He's particularly interesting because he was an airgun fan. His collection of airguns in the Windsor Castle collection is very interesting. I could only find a single mention of his actually shooting airguns, which was during an evening party and the description has people all but running for their lives.

Note: a small selection of George IV's airguns can be seen in Sporting Guns of Windsor by Blackmore. A must have for any proper airgun reference library. https://catalog.hathitrust.org/Record/007124737

One avenue of researching that was particularly interesting was the many caricature cards in which he was featured. One I found intriguing shows the Regent and his wife looking out of their castle and off to the side is a sign "Warning - Spring Guns". Which spurred me on to find out what the heck spring guns would be in this context. Turns out that at that time it was perfectly legal to set up deadly booby traps on ones own property to deter poachers and trespassers; one version of which is a firearm set to fire with a trip wire, i.e., a spring gun.

[cinedux]

it would be a small calibre anti-aircraft gun Dean,;-)

[DT Fletcher]

it would be a small calibre anti-aircraft gun Dean,;-)

Look like pretty big holes in her body to me.

More to the point, the young lady is recalling war and the effects of weapons of war, real or imagined, on her. She has not yet been bombed, she has not yet been gassed, she has not yet been hit by "air gun" action. To think that she suddenly changed from describing two weapons of war to civilian , non-war weapon, pellet rifles is nonsensical and I think this was a very sensical young lady.

[cinedux]

being promised a GAT..if I would wear a wee bag(containing a name tag,a cork-to bite on and cotton-wool to put in the ears.The latter two would counter the effects of sudden change in air pressure due to a nearby explosion), around my neck ,whilst at school.
Mum made that promise.