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Well, for accurate guns ... as a newbie I can relate my recent experience with rifles.

One day my dad and I went out to sight in his rifles. One is a Marlin lever-action .30-.30 and the other is an old Winchester 190 .22LR. Both are carbine-length and had open sights.

At 25 yards we can both shoot them just fine but at 50 yards the targets gets mighty hard to see with open sights. Also the biggest impediment to shooting accurately with a rifle is how still you can hold the gun. This is followed by how still you can hold it while following through the trigger, watching the target the whole time. Then you begin to know whether the sights are on or not. At 100 yards, a 12" target looks like a speck. It is very hard to see and virtually impossible to hit with open sights, particularly off-hand.

Shooting from a bench rest, on the other hand, it is far easier to hit accurately at 100 yards. A scope is necessary at this distance just so you can see the target.

We went and sighted in another friend's rifles, and his .22 magnum Marlin rifle was very accurate and had a big scope. Shooting from a bench rest, it was easy to achieve 1" or less grouping with the scope. However, shooting off-hand the groups were more like 1 foot at that distance.

In my opinion, every rifle on the market from a Daisy Red Ryder on up is more accurate than a beginning rifle shooter. You have to develop some skills before you are going to even have any idea how accurate a rifle is. My .177 cal pellet rifle will easily shoot 1" groups from a bench rest or even when I am sitting and shooting with my left arm rested on my knee, but off-hand I have trouble with sub-4" groups. So I have a lot of work to do to get to where I can shoot well even with an air rifle. A .22LR rifle will give much more usable target range than my Crosman 1077 air rifle but ammo costs more and I cannot practice at home.

While a .22LR is probably the right start, and $200 will buy a fine .22LR rifle, IMHO you can do yourself just as much good if not more with an air rifle if you are inclined to shoot it more and get more practice. I promise the limitation on your accuracy is not going to be the gun at first. I have shot about 300 rounds or more through my air rifle and my accuracy is getting better but I'm still 4" groups or more at 15 yards, I hit soda cans regularly at 20 yards, and at 50 yards with a .22LR rifle (my dad's Winchester 190) nobody including me could regularly hit a 6" target when we shot it last weekend. I figure another 1000 rounds of practice with the air rifle and maybe I can consistently hit a 6" target at 50 yards with a .22.

BTW, I kind of went through the same thing. I really dig shooting my dad's .22LR rifle, so much that I want one of my own. However, I didn't much like the kick of the .30-.30 nor the ammunition cost.

The thing I noticed shooting long guns vs. handguns for the newbie, is your idea of what's accurate changes. The way you shoot accurately is entirely different. If you shoot 3" groups at 7 yards with a defensive-caliber handgun, you will probably feel pretty good about it. But with many rifles it is entirely possible to shoot 1" groups at 50 or 100 yards or more. But actually doing it is a whole different matter.

FWIW I have been digging my air rifle shooting in the back yard. Check out my blog for the latest. I think .22LR is the entry point for long rifles, but if you want to practice a lot and you don't live out in the sticks with your own range, then an air rifle could really be an advantage. Just my $0.02.