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To be fair, use and possession of firearms in Britain is also a very strong marker of a distinct rural culture. To some extent this relates to class politics as well because the upper class has traditionally been rural and derived power and wealth from agriculture, it still sees itself that way even if that's not where many people make money any more.

See also the debate over fox-hunting which was seen as both a culture war between urban and rural as well as between the urban upper-middle class and the rural upper class.

One of the reasons for the different class associations of hunting between the UK and the US has to do with land availability. There is and always has been loads of sparsely populated land in the US (publicly or otherwise owned) on which it is possible to hunt inexpensively or for free. That is not true in the UK and many upper-class landowners have historically rented out their land to farmers but retained the hunting, fishing, and shooting rights for themselves.




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