We have a family of water rats in our garden and dh wants to shoot them

[lummox]

am not a particularly sentimental type, but they are the same animals as Ratty from the Wind in teh Willows and I'm a bit upset about it. not sure if I'm being daft.

we live in rural france and the folk in the village are very anti water rats and think we should have poisoned them long ago. I think dh is being influenced by the fact that people will think he is being woosy.

The more I think about it, the less likely it seems that my dh is likely to be able to shoot these animals - they're not even that easy to see until the water moves around them. Also, although he seems confident about it, unless he has been hiding something fairly spectacular he has no experience of shooting at all apart from having an airgun as a teenager.

You can kill someone (particularly a child) with an air rifle). And even if they don't get killed you can certainly blind someone. Definitely should be at least locked up in the outhouse. But are you sure that it's only an air rifle. I would be very surprised if it wasn't the real thing. The restrictions on owning firearms, particularly in the country, are pretty much non-existent in most countries except england.

I second Sofia. Also, accidents involving rifles are notorious.

Really not the best way to deal w/creatures who are nocturnal and live around water.