Its true that crossbows are frowned upon by bow enthusiasts, but I personally believe that this is an unjust prejudice. From a performance perspective, the crossbow is a bow, not a gun. The bolt flies like an arrow, not a bullet (higher holdover) and kills like an arrow (by blood loss) and not like a bullet (blood loss and shock).
Its true that bow hunting requires a little more skill and physical strength than crossbow hunting, but both are more difficult than using a gun. If crossbows are "too easy", why not lobby to ban gun hunting? Gun hunters have a reverse prejudice. They point out that guns are more humane because they kill more surely and swiftly, so why not ban all bows, standard and cross alike?
Personally I think hunting for sport in itself is overtly violent, so I personally can't for the life of me understand why one type of hunter would hold such an arbitrary prejudice against another. An "It takes more skill for me to kill than you" attitude seems patently adolescent to me. If skill were the only measure of it, then we should ban all hunting with any weapon other than the spear or knife!