re: Best handgun purchase for lefty

As a lefty, I find guns are like scissors- you very quickly learn how to make it work. Even on pistols with ambidextrous controls, I tend to use the ones on the left side of the frame; since this encompasses ALL my various semiautos, the handling is similar across the board.

If you really want the ambidextrous controls, a CZ 85 or Beretta 92SF (both very fine shooters) have them, and I'm sure many other models do too.

In the ever-popular (and cheap) surplus category, the CZ-82 is your best bet. It's actually a very good fit for your needs- it's got ambidextrous controls, it's a very well-made gun, pretty small, easy to shoot, is a double-stack with 12 rds in the magazine, and is quite inexpensive (can usu find it around $200, definitely under $300). Inexpensive is good sometimes... you get a thousand dollar pistol and it gets scratched up, it can make your stomach churn. It's only real drawback is ammo- it's 9 makarov, which is pretty cheap but you usually will have to find it online. Another potential drawback is the safety doesn't decock; so figure out if you want to keep your pistol decocked, unchambered, or cocked and locked (different guns do different things).

As a first gun, my bit of advice- find something fairly large/heavy in frame, get plenty of ammo, and shoot it a good bit. A heavier gun absorbs the recoil, so it isn't as unpleasant as a very small/light gun. If it's unpleasant, you won't shoot it much, and that's the one thing you need to do- shoot it until you feel comfortable with it.