vamrat; obviously you have never bowhunted
I wouldn't use a gun unless it had a silencer. I would rather hunt with a tomahawk than a gun.
A product of your culture. I prefer the rifle to the bow because I prefer to kill by hydrostatic shock than by allowing the animal to bleed to death. Then again, I am a very good shot and usually place the bullet where I want it to go. There are a lot of passionate arguments both ways. IN GENERAL, bow hunting requires a greater skill at HUNTING, and those that possess this skill have probably done their homework learning to shoot the bow and to choose the proper arrows with well sharpened tips. On the other hand, I have read that close to 50% of deer shot with a bow are not recovered. This does not mean that an expert hunter fails to recover half of what is shot. Some recover 100% of what they shoot. It is my experience that being a bow hunter means that one also has to be a good tracker, and many hunters (of all kinds) are not.
Gun hunting usually invites any idiot that can keep from shooting himself out into the field (and that is not always a sure bet, either), many of whom cannot shoot accurately. I used to work at deer hunter sight in events, and I swear that I would like to have shot a good number of the people coming in to sight in their rifles for daring to endanger humanity with their total lack of skill and complete stupidity around firearms. The good news is that most were so inept that they probably would seriously injure themselves if they tried to string a bow, much less use it. I hate to generalize about the stopping power of guns since there are so many variables. Rounds like the .30-06, 7mm Magnum, 8mm Magnum, .45-70 and the like have a good chance of stopping the dear right where they are at with a good hit. However, I have seen the .243 (where it is even legal), the .270, the 7mm Mauser and the like require the deer to be tracked after it was shot, indicating to me that the animal did not die any more humanely than if shot by a bow. The problem with a bow and lighter firearm calibers is that shot placement must be exact for a humane kill. The more powerful rounds have varying degrees of slop allowed (still, not that much).
So, if my choice is comparing an expert shot with a bow to an expert shot with a rifle, I will take the rifle (a product of my culture). On the other hand, if I have to choose a clean shot through the vitals with a bow and a hit in the hind quarters with a .30-06, I side with the bow. There is also a lot of gray area in between.