"Please don’t rain,” says Shea Kim, eyes skyward. It’s an overcast, intermittently drizzly afternoon at the firing range in Fountain Inn, and she wants to get some shooting in – another novice shooter has come to Kim for a lesson. The newbie is one of over 150 students who have come to Kim’s company, Definite Defense (www.definitedefense.com), to learn how to safely handle and shoot firearms.
Based in Greenville, Definite Defense offers basic and advanced pistol instruction, as well as Concealed Weapons Permit (CWP) training. Kim, a qualified NRA Pistol Instructor and certified South Carolina Law Enforcement Divison (SLED) Concealed Weapons Permit Instructor, started Definite Defense in 2010 after a diverse career that has seen cocktail waitressing in Las Vegas, serving as a U.S. Navy police officer in San Diego, dealing craps in Biloxi, and selling real estate in Greenville.
“A few years back, when I got my CWP in South Carolina, I decided to see what it would take to be an instructor,” she remembers. “I went and did all the NRA courses and all of the SLED requirements. And I realized that there’s not that many women teaching firearms or concealed weapons in this area.”
Kim also realized that female firearms instructors have certain advantages over males. “Some women don’t want to be trained by a 6-foot-3 ex-Marine,” she notes. “They feel intimidated by that. But they see me, I’m 5-foot-2, 105 pounds.” These realizations led to her decision to offer ladies-only classes, along with couples and private group classes. “Especially in the South, there’s a lot of men who have firearms in their homes,” she explains. “And women are afraid of them, or they don’t want to even touch them. I think it’s unhealthy to have a firearm in the house if your spouse doesn’t know what to do with it.”
One of Kim’s students was Mercedes Bartow, president of 370 Consulting Group, who earned her CWP after an 8-hour course. “I make a New Year’s resolution every year to learn something new, so handling a handgun and earning my CWP was this year’s goal,” Bartow explains. “I researched instructors and found that the same name was mentioned by many people whose opinion I respected – and that name was Shea Kim.” As an instructor, Kim easily met – and exceeded – Bartow’s expectations, with her energetic personality, military background, and subject matter expertise. “Shea covered much more than only the information necessary to finish the CWP exam,” she says. “She provided many examples and challenged the students to think about ‘what-if’ scenarios.” And even though Bartow’s firearms experience was limited to the practice range with her father and brother over 20 years ago, with Kim’s help, “I’m proud to say I nearly aced the CWP field test,” she says.
Kim also recently took on training 60 Upstate attorneys for their CWPs. “We did two classes with the South Carolina Bar Association,” Kim says. “We got a great response. There’s been a lot of incidents with family law attorneys who have been attacked. When you get into family law situations, people do crazy things.”
For students seeking a CWP, Kim goes above and beyond what many instructors offer by actually filing the application paperwork for her students. “Her attention to detail in handling all necessary filings of the fingerprints and paperwork for the CWP is a huge assistance to those of us with challenging schedules,” notes Richard Peck, director of business development and sommelier at Table 301 Restaurant Group, who went to Kim for handgun defense and CWP training this year.
A Nevada native, Kim joined the Navy after graduating from high school in Las Vegas. During her six years of service, she became one of the first female military police officers at Naval Base San Diego, and worked undercover with Naval Intelligence. After two honorable discharges, she returned to Las Vegas, where she started as a cocktail waitress, eventually becoming a craps dealer and floor supervisor at Biloxi Grand Casino in Mississippi.
While living in Biloxi, she visited the Upstate for the first time. “I came up here to visit my best friend from high school, and I met my husband,” she remembers. (Douglas Kim is an attorney at McNair Law Firm.) “And here I am, eight years later.” In Greenville, she sold real estate for Prudential C. Dan Joyner for two years – “when the market was taking a dump,” she laughs – and became part owner of the Bermuda Triangle Dive Shop on Pelham Road, before starting Definite Defense in 2010.
Self defense is “all about awareness,” Kim explains. “You have to be aware of your surroundings – where you can and can’t carry a weapon. And the CWP gives you a sense of protection, but you’re cautious of where you go and who’s around you, and you’re analyzing your situational awareness all the time.” And, although South Carolina, unlike many states, does not enforce a “duty to retreat” before using force in self-defense in many situations, Kim agrees that sometimes retreat is a smart move. “If you can ‘light and not fight,’ it’s the right thing to do,” she says. “Nobody wants to shoot anybody. But you also want to be prepared if a threat comes toward you or if you’re in danger.”
Or, as the newbie shooter notices on the back of Kim’s Definite Defense T-shirt, “One class can save your life.”