This is part of a larger trend. See the maps here of the changes in permitted carry since the 80s:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_carry

This GIF in particular makes that point clearly:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Constitutional_carry#/media/Fi...

And if anything it has accelerated around the Covid pandemic:

https://biostats.ucdavis.edu/health-news/newsroom/us-saw-sur...

As the politics in this country have curved in a liberal direction, I'm quite surprised that gun control issues seem to have moved the other way. What can explain that?