Like in so many other mass shootings, the Virginia Beach massacre happened in a gun free zone. While anti-gunners continue to decry any attempt to put guns in citizens’ hands in various places, the fact remains that the vast majority of shootings are carried out in places where people are prohibited from carrying by law.

However, it seems that at least one victim was encouraged to carry a gun despite the laws that barred her from doing so.

Kate Nixon was a fixer.

As a supervisor in the public utilities department for a decade, she solved problems for the city and was described as logical and level-headed.

So when she told her husband, Jason, that she had concerns about two of her co-workers, he knew it was serious. She didn’t like to be around [the eventual killer], a fellow engineer — he gave off “real bad vibes” and she’d had to write him up several times for issues with performance and attitude. They both worked on the second floor of Building 2 in the Municipal Center.

But on the night of May 30, it was another man she was most worried about. Kate told her husband that the man, whom Jason Nixon declined to identify, was set to be fired Friday and there was supposed to be a police escort on scene when it happened. While cooking dinner, she expressed her concerns.

“She said, ‘This guy’s going to come back and shoot the place up,’ ” Jason Nixon said. He encouraged his wife to hide a pistol in her purse and take it to work — she had training and knew how to use it — but she didn’t want to break city policy forbidding employees from bringing weapons to work.

Shortly after 4 p.m. on May 31, it was [the killer] who opened fire in Building 2, killing Kate and 11 others.

Nice job, Virginia Beach.

A private citizen had concerns about someone else and didn’t carry her weapon to work because of the rules that prohibited it.

Now, let me ask you this: How many lives could Kate Nixon have saved if she’d been allowed to? She was apparently willing. After all, she underwent training. Since her concern was city policy, it suggests that she had a concealed carry permit as well.

Yet she was disarmed by the stupid rules in place, rules we’re told will make us safer.

However, a dozen people were killed, and they were killed despite those rules.

Look, I get the thinking. It seems counter-intuitive to many when you tell someone that more guns make people safer, yet this is a prime example of how that may well have been true.

Further, a red flag law wouldn’t have done a thing because Nixon was worried about the wrong person in this case. Had there been time to get a red flag order in place, it would have disarmed the wrong person, not the eventual killer.

Had there been no rules prohibiting Nixon from carrying, though, the results may well have been very different. For one, Kate Nixon might have gone home that night shaken, but alive.

When someone says that it’s better to be tried by twelve than carried by six, this is what they’re talking about. Now, I can’t condone that kind of action for what I hope are obvious reasons, but I damn sure understand the sentiment. Especially right now.