Gov. Mark Dayton signed a bill into law Monday that allows county attorneys and assistant county attorneys to carry firearms while on duty, assuming they have a valid, state-issued permit to carry.

The signing comes just months after the Dec. 15 shooting of Tim Scannell, a Cook County attorney who was shot by the man he had just successfully prosecuted in a criminal sexual conduct case.

“I don’t particularly like the idea that local government officials can’t carry weapons when other citizens can,” he later said during a legislative committee hearing in January.

Dan Donnelly, an attorney at law in Austin, agreed with the bill.

“There’s a number of states that already allow their county attorneys to carry firearms,” Donnelly said. “After what happened in northern Minnesota, it’s appropriate.”

Donnelly himself is not a county attorney and won’t directly be affected by the bill, but he knows a number of county attorneys, and it wouldn’t concern him if they carried a gun, he said.

“There will be some who decide to arm themselves,” Donnelly said. He doesn’t expect it will be very common, he added.

Mower County Attorney Kristen Nelsen said in January that the bill was introduced to fill a gap in the law.

“[The right to carry] shouldn’t automatically be taken away just because you’re a prosecutor,” she said.

The bill’s signing will not affect the no-guns rule in courtrooms. Courthouses themselves will be able to decide individually where guns are and are not allowed.

The House passed the bill 116-15 at the end of February. It passed through the Senate 53-10 on Thursday.

Nelsen was not immediately available for comment.

—The Associated Press contributed to this report