The thing that will make black powder more and more unavailable has more to do with things like sales volume, insurance and liablility, and other business considerations and not much to do with a particular type of people and how they feel about guns, etc. I am a member of two reenacting groups, and the clubs are mostly populated by senior citizens. It makes me sad, but it looks like we are a dying breed. Younger people are not interested that much in history or historic firearms. They are attracted to the 'black guns" and modern "Glock-like" handguns. This will be the real threat to the availability of black powder: how many people who want to buy it. The best thing we can do for our hobby is to encourage younger people to get involved with black powder weapons!
Actually there has been quite a surge in young people interested in firearms, even period muzzleloading arms. Why? Because they are included in electronic games and the fascination transfers over to real life.
We actually owe a lot to the game designers and their wholesale inclusion of firearms into their product. We could use more period games like Pirates, American Revolution, War of Northern Aggression, etc, and that would help our sport.
The prevalence of WW2 and WW1 games is driving the market in surplus military arms right now in this country.
In truth, the insurance regulations, shipping fees and storage restrictions etc., are the result of "
a particular type of people and how they feel about guns, etc." which in turn affects the sales volume and size of the affected population. The idea is to suppress through any means.
It has also been my experience that liking/owning one type of gun, leads to liking and owning others. Many start of with a simple .22, and a lot of people entranced by your so called "black guns" branch out and experiment, finding things like War of Northern Aggression arms relevant to their interest in military arms, and that then leads to an interest in flintlocks, etc. The more the merrier.
Younger people who have jobs and families often go in for the easiest to use and find arms as they are time and budget friendly, and they are more susceptible to the media "coolness factor". As they get older and have more time and disposable income, they branch out and start becoming more interested and involved in areas that are more costly, slower and time consuming, like muzzleloading./reenacting/blackpowder hunting.