It took 45 days to receive it. I am new to guns ...
Welcome aboard, to the responsibility of managing your own security and defense. Congratulations!
k:
This may be a dumb question but should I practice carrying it loaded or unloaded?
Either way is fine, so long as you train to be effective in that mode and well understand the pros/cons in various situations you might find yourself.
There are people who carry unchambered, and ideally they train to be effective with the gun in that condition. And there are people who carry chambered, and ideally
they train to be effective with the gun in
that condition. By far, the worst thing you can do is to not train to deal with the realities of not having a bullet ready to go. It's little different than, say, failing to train properly on dealing with your manual thumb safety (if your gun has one), a situation that can easily result in your needing to fire but being blocked from doing so. Train, train, train ... and it should be fine.
My thoughts: I'm comfortable with typically DA/SA pistols or DA revolvers, and none of my handguns have manual safeties that I must first disengage before firing. I carry with a round chambered, in all my handguns, always have, and I train that way. Of course, with DA/DAO and chambered handguns without manual safeties, I need to be cognizant of the risk of an unintentional discharge, but I train that way on all the handguns. Works for me, and I'm comfortable with the level of attention and handling procedures required. YMMV.
