....that firearms ownership is in any way naturally and organically related to any particular socio-economic, educational, cultural or any other strata in American society. Historically, the shooting sports have been the domain, mostly, of an upscale, leisured class. Kind of like golf with bullets.
I believe that those who would oppose the ownership or carrying of firearms have made every attempt to denigrate, to diminish, to lower the societal opinion towards gun owners.
They do this in order to create a 'superior, more enlightened' level of society which looks down on RKBA.
By enlisting the so-called 'elite' in an anti-gun outlook, gun owners are labeled as rednecks, rubes, the paranoid, gun nuts, etc. etc.
And yes, to a great extent, it has worked...
Except for the military, any organization I have been involved in (mostly corporate or educational) the higher you go in the structure, the fewer gun owners there are.
From a geographic perspective, the sparser the population, the denser the (legal) gun ownership becomes.
However, conflating gun ownership/culture with being hopelessly rural, backward, etc. is a recent, artificial construct.
Hunting has gone from an upscale pursuit to one dominated by the working class. Collecting firearms by the wealthy has been re-labeled as 'hoarding' or 'stocking up' which is an act of the uneducated and possible racist.
"working class culture is something that I have worked hard to distance myself from"
I'm not sure it is necessary to distance one's self from such a large group of hard working people.
I always avoided, as much as possible, becoming involved in my kid's sports games. However, school age sports are supported just as vigorously in upscale suburban communities as in working class areas. Religion is not, in my opinion, more prevalent in working class areas as in upscale areas, nor is an outward display of patriotism.
If you are going to a shooting range, you are part of the gun culture. That does not mean you are of any particular socio-economic, educational or cultural strata in society, or that you are also required to go yell at a sports game, attend church, or wave a flag.
I agree completely with your views on 'shall issue' and as I have said on this website, I want to live long enough to see New York City a shall-issue jurisdiction for concealed carry.
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