You forgot American Redneck.
Where are you from?
I'm not surprised at the hostility in this thread since I brought up "class" -- a touchy subject. But I do think where I'm coming from is mistaken, though I'm willing to correct myself which is why I brought this up.
My brother was in corporate sales, made a couple million and quit to teach in a government school. His wife he met at university works for an investment bank. They're totally middle class, vote Democrat, and admit they're liberals.
Part of my family (prior generation) grew up ranching/farming in the midwest and voted Democrat when it was good for farmers, then worked a career for big defense contractors (voting Reagan/Bush/Republican when it was good for defense). Lived in a suburb with lot of neighbors that were "executive" vice presidents and chief financial officers (successful accountants) or commercial airline pilots. The neighbor kids vacationed at Club Med. Most of them had a few million bucks or more but it was strictly middle class. Now that they're elderly, probably voted for whoever's good for retirees or will give the grandkids free tuition (Bernie).
Other part of my family escaped economic catastrophe in Saigon from Vietnamese communism (they also survived the war), and ethnic persecution because they aren't ethnically Vietnamese. Here in the states they own small businesses and commercial real estate. I've never heard them talk politics. They're mostly busy doing their business and making sure all their kids go through university. None of them own guns but not because of any ideological opposition. They're in California. Whenever they come here, I take them shooting and they enjoy it. Their next generation coming up have gone thorough university into corporate California, a bunch of "finance" and "business" degrees and they're not going to carry.
American Redneck -- I suppose this could be a perjorative but I went to a Aggy university and all my housemates were proud to be red necks which by my interpretation is just an all American boy that enjoys liberty, country-living, pickup trucks, and fun women. Among the social strata, they became working class. They're definitely not middle-class corporate drones. They liked guns.
I used to live in the ghetto, Sal Si Puedes, mostly among Mexican Americans, but there was Vietnamese there too. I'd been to jail many times and was familiar with the criminal class and the streets. If anyone I ever met there was carrying, it wasn't legally.
That's where I'm from.
I do myself carry concealed every day, everywhere and have daily for 5 years now. I also train with the handgun regularly and have attended schools like Gunsite, ITTS, Thunder Ranch, Rogers etc. I realize those schools tend to attract more affluent working-class clientele (small business owners, well-to-do contractors, retired military, etc.), but I'm also familiar with the habits of people in the local churches. I attend a nondenominational Christian church and have friends in several others. A good portion of them carry. Socially, they're mostly working class, smll business owners and retired people.
I'm doubtful that carry is a practice that spans the social strata equally. I'm sure some people will be pissed off that I even suggest there is social strata, and others will be upset that I've suggested a narrowing of the relevance of concealed carry to any kind of minority. Can you convince me that actual practice of concealed carry is really diverse as a rule and not just the exception or ideologically?
