As far as using the Net for a source of information, sounds like you took the right approach by reading a bunch and taking things with a grain of salt. You likely found a trend with certain topics and combined with your own common sense found answers that well applied.
The two most important things regarding carry for newbies aren't complicated nor require expert skills.
Keep the gun properly holstered and on your person. That'll prevent about 99.99% of screw-ups. There are a zillion other considerations but if newbies follow those two disciplines without exception they'll be well on their way to a lifetime of grief-free carry.
The emphasis has to be on the "common sense" part of this statement. Otherwise it's way too easy to get carried away by popular trends. Just because something is popular doesn't make it a good idea.
You need to always ask why someone does something, what the advantages are of that approach over another, and what their specific needs are and then ask yourself whether those needs align well with yours.
The pitfall too many concealed carry permit holders fall into is thinking that they should carry like they were an LEO. Two common examples of LEO practices that may not transfer well to concealed carry are tactical lights and carrying a total of three high capacity magazines.
Lights makes sense for LEOs as they go into dark and spooky places looking for bad guys. In contrast an armed citizen should probably be avoiding those same dark places if they suspect a bad guy is lurking there. That's just common sense.
Similarly, about 95% of all self defense shoots (officer involved or otherwise) are over and done with less than 5 rounds fired at less than 5 yards in less than 5 seconds. The FBI looked at 12 years of agent involved shoots and found 75% involved 3 rounds or less at 3 yards or less. No reloads, no extra magazines needed - and frankly no need for a high capacity magazine at all.
Occurrences of multiple assailant armed citizen shoots where more than 5 rounds might be needed are even less common. If you want to carry a 15 round semi-auto, knock yourself out, same with carrying 2 spare magazines - just be aware the odds of you ever needing it in an armed citizen self defense shoot are very, very low and the price you'll have to pay is a much heavier and much bulkier and harder to conceal EDC.
That matters as the more you carry the more you'll eventually start leaving on the dresser as comfort all day long is the primary requirement for carrying your firearm from the time you get up until the time you turn in and place in on the night stand. If you carry to much ****, sooner or later you'll leave it home when you run down to the local stab and grab at midnight to get your nagging pregnant wife a pint of Ben and Jerry's, or have it in a drawer somewhere in another room when a bad guy kicks in the front door while you're watching TV.
Your shooting practice should also be focused on the things that matter. That means less focus on tactical reloads (although every time you load your pistol or revolver you might as well take the opportunity to make it a tactical re-load) and more focus on the basics like drawing from concealment, and shooting accurately and rapidly (at the same time - the two are not mutually exclusive).
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I totally agree with the "properly holstered" comment. Get a good holster that fully protects the trigger and will allow you to re-holster the weapon safely.
What that requires depends on the pistol or revolver you are carrying, but at a minimum it needs a stiff mouth that will hold the holster open and not roll over the enter the trigger guard. If you're shooting a striker fired pistol with no manual safety, you will be best served with a holster with a belt clip that allows easy removal of the holster to re-holster the pistol while it's out in front of you where you can visually confirm there are no obstructions in the trigger guard (including your finger if you are under stress). The same approach makes sense even with a DA pistol or DA revolver.
DA pistols and revolvers with exposed hammers offer another level of safety in terms of tactile feedback if the hammer is obstructed as you'll feel the hammer coming back if the trigger is obstructed, provided you put your thumb over the hammer when holstering it.
Seek the wisdom of people like Masaad Ayoob, Clint Smith, John Farnam, Jeff Cooper, Dave Spaulding, Tom Givens and more.
Don't be in a rush.
I agree to a point. You still have to apply some common sense and look at the extent to which their needs and priorities actually match yours.
I like 90% of what Ayoob says, while the rest I take with a grain of salt. For example, he is exactly right about his preference for the Stress Fire reload, particularly if you are carrying a snub nose revolver with a short ejector rod, and you're shooting a full power .357 mag load where the cases want to stick in the chambers. But if not, the FBI re-load is faster, so you still need to consider what may meet your needs most effectively.
I don't agree with his advice not to use reloads for self defense. He cites an example where re-loads caused problems for a defendant, but it was in fact reloads in general, after the defendant's spouse shot herself with a light target load, and the forensics folks testing a full power self defense load they confiscated from the home determined the lack of powder stippling on the body meant the range must have been too great for a self inflicted wound. The issue here is not the use of hand loads, it's the uncertainty about what load was in the gun and an inability to get the forensics to match the defendant's statement.
The common sense take away from this is to keep your self defense ammo separate, and clearly mark your self defense loads as such. Keep that one box you've loaded from separate and always ensure you've got enough left in the box to provide a sample for forensic analysis. The advantage of factory ammo is the presence of data bases to help identify the round used when the shooter isn't known, and to confirm the ballistic evidence matched the statements when the shooter is know. The first doesn't apply in a self defense shoot, and the second doesn't matter if you've segregated your self defense ammo and have enough for a proper analysis.
