I've never touched a gun, but as far as a know hunting weapons are not optimal for self defense.
When you hunt a deer you try to hit from far away and if you miss, well, you'll find another.
When someone is trying to harm you (even with a knife), you want to shoot multiple times and as fast as possible. If you shoot once and miss, by the time you manually reload, the attacker can get to you. If you do hit, but with a small caliber, that doesn't have stopping power. You might seriously injure the attacker, but he'll also injure/kill you.
Between the two, I might go with the knife in most situations. I can't carry my hunting rifle around with me all day. Mine also has a huge scope on it that makes it useless at the distances you would typically encounter a hostile human attacker. The rifle is also overpowered for the job, and introduces concern for damage to unintended targets.
Have you ever heard the saying "in a knife fight, the difference between the loser and the winner is that the winner gets to go to the hospital"? Doesn't seem like a fun situation to be in. Especially for people who hunt with weaker calibers or lower powered scopes, it seems ideal to stay out of arm's reach from any potential bad guy
But if the choice comes down to a hunting rifle, a knife, and a Glock 19, I'm going to choose the option that will put the threat down quickly and humanely.
When you hunt a deer you try to hit from far away and if you miss, well, you'll find another.
When someone is trying to harm you (even with a knife), you want to shoot multiple times and as fast as possible. If you shoot once and miss, by the time you manually reload, the attacker can get to you. If you do hit, but with a small caliber, that doesn't have stopping power. You might seriously injure the attacker, but he'll also injure/kill you.