Originally Posted by uncle_el

recently, for a variety of reasons, i've given some serious consideration to owning a gun. i've never owned a gun, and i've never fired one. hell, i've never even held one!

i understand that i should take a class, so that i can become educated and trained about handguns/issues/etc, but what's the step beyond the first few classes? straight to the range, more classes, or both?

as far as the type of gun, i'm interested in a small to medium sized pistol. are there good guns for beginners? i suppose this all may be information to be gathered in a class, but i thank you in advance.