Anecdotally, from what I've heard and what I observed in the Missouri CCW class I took, the demographics of concealed carry are strongly biased to the older, mostly middle-aged and older.

For exactly the reason you point out. Grandma and grandpa have gotten too old to even think of holding their own in hand to hand combat, but a very large fraction can safely use handguns. And, anecdotally, in my CCW class it was mentioned they had only failed two people, one guy who couldn't observe Rule 2 (was pointing his handgun everywhere, can't remember if he was really old), and one old lady who wasn't strong enough to rack the slide of Glock (unfortunately she gave up at that point instead of finding a solution that was within her physical capabilities).