Diggerr

No one seems to have touched on this. What are you comfortable with? How much experience do you have with handguns? If your not experienced stay away from semi-autos and large calibers. Semi-autos take training such as reload drills, malfunction drills, proper drawing of the gun without shooting your self etc. Large callibers can scare new shooters with their recoil,this to include the 357 mag if youve never experienced it.

My suggestion is find a local gun shop that rents firearms. Try a few and buy what works good for you meaning whatever you can shoot and can make hits. Get training on whatever the weapon is and practice practice practice. To many gun owners by them shoot them a few times and think that good enough and put them away for a just in case moment. Your marksmanship degrades with time thereforemaking a bad situation worst when its time to pull it. Your confidence will not be there and you'll hesitate.I hope this helps