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Movies make everything up. They have too many rounds in magazines, the guns fire too quickly or too quietly, and in some cases, the guns fire too well. It's not often brought up, but larger magazine drums often cause the guns to jam.

There's a great deal of Americans who have just as little knowledge of firearms. I don't own guns myself--everything I know, I learned, most of it coming from firearm experts who happened to be my favorite novelists.

That's actually the thing about a lot of semi-automatics--they look similar to automatic rifles, which makes laymen all the more afraid of them.

Recoil can be tricky. There's a lot of factors that come into it, but the bottom line is that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction.

Some heavy guns actually have less recoil and the recoil in a handgun can be surprisingly strong if you haven't braced yourself properly. This is because, if fitted with the same ammo, the guns are firing the same round. The larger, heavier gun absorbs more of the recoil across its entire frame and although the overall recoil may be greater, the felt recoil won't be nearly as strong for the gunman. The smaller handgun has it more concentrated and thus, the gunman feels that much more.

The most popular firearm in the United States is the AR-15, which is noted for having a very light recoil.

That all being said, a stranger on the Internet isn't the best person to give you advice on which firearm might suit you best, if you were ever to use one. You'd want to speak to people with experience, face-to-face about that.