About us

Ours is the South Carolina Concealed Weapons Permit (CWP) and Basic Pistol class that reporter Corey Hutchins took in the Columbia, SC, area and wrote about appreciatively in "Point Blank" for Columbia's Free Times (June 24-30, 2009):

"Joe Katz told us that he hoped we never had to fire a gun in self-defense. He said we should never try and be a hero. But if the day ever came when our world broke apart, when there was some brutal force trying to take our lives or the lives of those around us — when our hands shook and our hearts raced — then we would remember Joe's voice and exactly what he told us to do.

"If that day ever comes I will hear that voice."

On June 21, 2010, the NRA Womens Programs named Janet Katz "one of our most outstanding trainers." Janet is the focus of "Meet the women of the NRA: Janet Katz" on the NRA Blog for July 8, 2010.

We've been distinguished for many years. Janet was featured in Women and Guns magazine (July/August 2005), the national magazine for the Womens Firearms Network published by the Second Amendment Foundation, for her notable participation in a high-level advanced handgun workshop with Chuck Taylor, Massad Ayoob, and other well-known experts. Janet has national respect from people who know. She earned that respect and she continues to earn it.

We have decades of experience teaching people
how to protect themselves and their families

We're not newcomers and we have more than book learning behind us. In fact we've been around a long time, helping people protect themselves, and continuing to gain valuable experience every year. Shown here is the Certificate of Recognition awarded by the Secretary of Defense to Joseph Katz for his service to the United States during the Cold War.

We're serious about what we do and we work hard to do it right. For example, we're parents of children we raised safely around guns to adulthood so we teach firearms safety in the home from real experience. It's not theoretical to us. We've proven that we know what we're doing.

Paladin Services LLC was founded in 1992 by Dr. Joseph Katz and Janet Katz as a limited liability company based in Columbia, South Carolina, but with national scope to help people learn how to protect themselves and their families. In fact this web site—the web site you're now reading—has been online since June 2, 1997, and we keep it current. We've been doing this work for a long time and we stay current while we avoid fads, fashions, and fantasies.

We don't want anything bad to happen to you and we'll teach you to avoid and evade potentially deadly confrontations. But if you can't avoid or escape a real world nightmare you'll want the echoes of our voices to guide you to prevail. We know that what we teach you now could be the only help available when help is what you desparately need to save your life or your family. We teach you as well as we know how. And we do know how.

We're SLED-Certified Instructors and NRA-Certified Instructors

Both Janet and Joseph Katz are SLED-Certified South Carolina CWP Instructors. We both are NRA-Certified Instructors in every major discipline, including:

• NRA-Certified Pistol Instructors
• NRA-Certified Shotgun Instructors
• NRA-Certified Rifle Instructors
• NRA-Certified Refuse To Be A Victim Instructors
• NRA-Certified Personal Protection In The Home Instructors
• NRA-Certified Personal Protection Outside The Home Instructors (Basic and Advanced)
• NRA-Certified Home Firearm Safety Instructors

We select, teach, and certify Instructors and Range Safety Officers

We're honored that the NRA appointed both Joe and Janet to be Training Counselors at the same time. "Training Counselor" is the rank for the relatively small number of highly-trained and trusted people in the United States who are authorized to select, instruct, and certify other instructors in the knowledge, skills, and attitude needed to teach certified firearms classes.

So when you take classes from us you are working directly with the people appointed to teach other teachers and certify other instructors. As we have done throughout most of our lives, we're always on the alert to develop good, reliable, certified instructors. It's among the responsibilities we take most seriously.

We also teach the Range Safety Officer training class for the safety personnel who supervise well-managed shooting ranges throughout the U.S., and we're the people who recommend their certification.

In fact both of us—Joseph Katz and Janet Katz—are NRA-Certified Chief Range Safety Officers. (Chief Range Safety Officers are those people who possess the knowledge, skills, and attitude essential to organizing, conducting, and supervising safe shooting activities and range operations. As we explain to our classes, safety is always our foremost concern.) We're also both factory-trained, Glock-Certified Armorers.

We're nationally recognized professionals

Teaching is not a sideline or hobby for us nor a passing interest or just a job or a way to supplement our income. We're not moonlighting. We're well-trained, certified, and experienced professionals. We're teachers. Helping people learn has been our profession throughout both our lives. The two of us together have decades of fulltime professional experience as educators at many levels and in many contexts.

Our proven skills include teaching, research, lecturing, communications, writing, designing, publishing, and creating instructional materials in all major media to help people learn things, do things, and understand what they're doing. We enjoy helping people learn at every level and age, and we have focused our lives on it. We have won national awards and honors as instructors and teachers.

We'll teach you how to protect yourself
and your family in your home and outside

We're serious about what we do. We can do what we teach and we're highly trained for it. Our chosen focus is on personal protection and self-defense for ordinary people. We don't play games or teach them.

We continue to learn so we can teach you better

We are committed to lifelong learning. Both of us have trained in the legal, ethical, and moral aspects of the Judicious Use of Deadly Force with Massad Ayoob, the renowned expert and expert witness in the field. We also are Stressfire-trained by Ayoob and the Lethal Force Institute in both pistol and shotgun. And we are invitees to LFI workshops and reunions. Our instruction in the legal aspects of self-defense is informed by advanced training from nationally known experts. We were among the first Instructor Members of the Armed Citizens Legal Defense Network. We sponsor our students for membership in the Network. Neither of us is a lawyer nor pretends to be one, so we will not give legal advice or counsel.

Janet and Joe are trained extensively in the defensive use of handguns and shotguns by Ayoob, Louis Awerbuck (Yavapai Firearms Academy) and Randy Cain (Cumberland Tactics). We have trained with Chuck Taylor (American Small Arms Academy) and Frank Cornwall (Defense Associates): when we teach the speed rock technique invented by Taylor and adopted by NRA for its Personal Protection courses, we teach it as we learned it from Taylor himself.

We actively support and assist law enforcement

Joseph Katz and Janet Katz and Paladin Services LLC are Sustaining Members of the South Carolina Police Chiefs Association.

We also assist the South Carolina Law Enforcement Assistance Program (an agency of the state's major law enforcement agencies: SLED; South Carolina Department of Public Safety; South Carolina Department of Natural Resources; and South Carolina Department of Probation, Parole, and Pardon Services).

Janet Katz is a founding member of the Board of Directors of the South Carolina Chaplaincy for Law Enforcement.

We're active in the major national and local associations

At the very least we hope you'll join us in standing up for your right to protect your life and the lives of the people you love. Edmund Burke (1729-1797), the English statesman who supported the American Revolution, said it well: "When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall one by one . . . ."

Self defense—the ability to defend yourself against bad people who want to kill you or cause great bodily harm—is not a privilege to be granted or denied by governments or politicians or the media or any combination of other people. Self-defense is the natural right of all human beings. It is valued most by civilized people who cherish human life. It was Burke who said it another way too: "All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing."

Here's our bottom line . . .

We believe in—and firmly support—the fundamental right of people to defend their own lives and protect their families. Despite shrill denials and protests from those whose self-interest lies elsewhere, the Supreme Court of the United States in its District of Columbia v. Heller decision of 2008 and in its McDonald v. Chicago decision of 2010 reaffirmed what is obvious to any rational person with respectable motives: self-defense is an individual right—a natural, inherent, and fundamental right of all humanity.

There is no right to self defense if people are denied the means to defend themselves. Every person must also the right to employ those means in defending their lives. People—like you—have the natural right, affirmed by the Constitution of the United States, to own and use firearms to protect yourself. We think it's unwise for anyone to deny or reject or refuse their right to stay alive and we don't understand why some people insist upon doing it.

We cherish human life. That's why we teach these classes and why we won't cut corners when we teach you. We know that your life might depend on what you learn.

What's your bottom line?

No matter what anyone else says, you won't have time to figure out what to do for the first time during a deadly force confrontation. You certainly won't "rise to the occasion." Nobody rises to the occasion when they must react to an unprovoked life threatening attack for the first time, except maybe in the movies, and often not even then. You don't live in a movie. You need to be taught what you need to do in real life.

That's where we enter the picture. We don't teach you to be a mall ninja or fantasy warrior. We teach real people real things for the real world. We take you as you are and train you to do your best.

We're nationally recognized, we know what we're doing, we're proven teachers of adults, we have the years and the mileage and the experience that comes only with life's treadmarks, and we're on your side.

E-mail us now. Please include your local telephone number so we can answer your questions and determine your needs.

Top of Page