I think it was Rob Zombie who said in the 2005 documentary Metal: A Headbanger's Journey that "metal is outsider's music for outsider people" and it's a claim that I definitely rings true. One thing people often forget or overlook when it comes to metal is that by and large it's a geek genre first and foremost. I mean just look at power metal and viking metal for proof of that, the former is usually about a fantastical world, great epic battles and dragons, while the latter is celebrating the history of the Scandinavian countries. Then you've got bands like Nile and guys like Karl Sanders whose knowledge in Egyptian history rivals any history teacher I've ever known, hell he even sings in the Egyptian language occasionally. Also don't even get me started on the number of H.P. Lovecraft references you'll find in various metal songs, and if you ever want to make a geek cream his pants start talking about Lovecraft.
On the other side you've got some of the genres like grindcore or death metal which started off featuring incredibly grotesque lyrics (and some still do). It pretty much seemed like anyone who happened to be a fan of the really gory horror movies of the late '70's and throughout the '80's decided to form a metal band to talk about their mutual love of the macabre sights presented in those films. Some of these people I wouldn't trust with anything sharper than a crayon, but for a lot of these kinds of people, they don't know why they like gore, they just do.
Then of course you also have the knuckle draggers or goons as you referred to them as who also populate the metal ranks. I can't really say for certain cause I try to avoid those people like the plague but I'm sure it's the aggressiveness of the metal sound that attracts them to the genre. From my observations it seems that metalcore and deathcore attracts the largest amount of these types of people, which is why I think so many metal fans dislike those two subgenres. That said it's all conjecture based off observations I've made, maybe a lot of people who like metalcore/deathcore are really nice and smart, and I'm just being a prejudiced asshole.
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