[user]

Boy, those are all good questions, and there's a lot of them. And without meaning to blow you off, I would observe that they've pretty well been pounded to death elsewhere in this forum. May I suggest that you use the search function in the middle of the menu at the top of the screen and start looking up the threads that go into all that stuff.

There are threads comparing different calibers, revolvers v. semiautomatics and differences within each of those broad categories, brand preferences, what kind to start with if you don't know spit, licensing issues, transportation issues, concealed carry reciprocity, and just about everything else you can think of. You've reached an incredible repository of people who know an awful lot about this stuff and have nothing better to do with their time than to type at their computer and pontificate about guns. If they weren't doing that, after all, they'd be outside shooting something.