It's not the sport that matters but how you play it. If you are stupid and don't wear masks then neither of them are safe. Paintballs hurt worse but in airsoft you get hit much more often. In paintball after about your second game you get used to getting hit and it doesn't hurt as bad. The same thing goes for airsoft. But when you think about it airsoft runs off batteries and paintball runs off of Co2 and HpA. So the only way you couldn't be safe in paintball is by not following the rules and not keeping good care of your gun parts and tanks. Hope this helps a little......Personally i play paintball. Send me a message if you have any more questions.
Noobhelper 2
Paintball and airsoft are both safe if you know what you are doing and follow safety rules. If the question is what hurts worse, paintball will usually tend to sting more, but airsoft guns can vary in fps, (feet per second), and paintball guns have a set fps speed that fields will only allow (a limit), so you may run into airsoft guns that hurt worse than others, and paintball guns won't vary too much.