Clearly I haven’t shot anything irl ever and don’t know much about weapons either. Oh and relax, I’m not planning on shooting anyone.
Question comes after videogames, which can sometimes have both weapon types used interchangeably and/or behaving in a similar way.
I would personally believe guns are easier, and that the only advantage a bow would ever have is that they’re not as noisy. But I hear people say aiming with a bow is easier. I guess the type of bow and gun used would also weigh on the matter?
I bet it would take me 15 minutes to teach you to put 80% of shots on a dinner plate target at 100m with my 50 year old hunting rifle I got for free of an old man who moved to the city.
Classical bows require strength to use. They have no sights either so you have to go by feel. Modern compound bows are easier to shoot but the arrow still drops much more than a bullet, so shooting at longer ranges is harder.
Smaller caliber guns can be suppressed to be fairly quiet. A bow will be quieter but not by an order of magnitude.
The advantage of a bow is that it’s easier to find somewhere to practice because even the most reckless shot the arrow does not travel as far before it drops to the ground. You can also reuse your arrows.
Define easier
In terms of making the danger dot go, guns are miles easier to initially fire. But easy only in that sense, that pulling a trigger takes less force to achieve.
Bows are definitely harder to pull.
However, even a simple firearm isn’t as intuitive as a bow to make ready to shoot.
A gun, even the simplest ones, take more steps to go from paperweight to boom stick. A bow, you can just look at and tell there’s essentially three steps: put pointy part away from you, other end on string; pull string; let go.
A gun, you have to determine what size bullet and how much propellant, load a bullet and propellant, close the gun or otherwise ensure that the bullet comes out the danger end; then engage the trigger. And even that assumes the bullet and powder don’t need anything like a percussion cap, a flint or whatever.
If it’s a more advanced firearm, you’ll be dealing with some kind of safety mechanism, loading a magazine or revolver with the correct rounds, and how to open whatever mechanism allows you to load the rounds.
So, guns take more non intuitive thinking to make work, and are thus harder.
I’d say they’re roughly equally hard to shoot well, but that guns are slightly easier to shoot and hit something. Both take a lot of practice to keep tight groupings of the animation ammunition in the target. But you can kinda trust the speed of a bullet to hit what you’re generally pointing at, at close range. An arrow, it tales a little more effort to figure out how to do that. It isn’t a huge gap, but it is there.
It’s different learning curves, basically.
Type of device does matter some; an old school long bow is going to be a little easier for a total noob to put arrows into a target with than a fancy modern bow. And you definitely have a different set of body mechanics between long guns and handguns, as well as between rifles and shotguns. There’s nuances between revolvers and “semi auto” in handguns, bolt action vs semiautomatic in rifles and shotguns, etc.
But, on average, if I was wanting to get someone to the point they could have a decent chance of hunting something the size of a deer, I’m going to put a rifle in their hands. They’ll, with instruction, be able to get clean kills faster than with a bow. Even with iron sights, I’ve seen kids keep sub six inch groups after a few days of practice with appropriately sized rifles, at hunting ranges. An adult should be able to be ready to roll at least that fast
