It sure is a lot to process at once. Especially considering I'm going from a mindset of "I want/need to do this but just can't afford to right now" to "I'm actually starting the process of doing this and there are so many things that could happen in any number of situations".
Totally understandable.
Permit me to mention something that I hope helps.
Many of us veterans had to learn this stuff the hard way. Hashing out tactics on this forum. Finding a new (to us) court opinion, here and there, and then having to adjust tactics to suit. Every negative LEO encounter that got posted got analyzed (and criticized) in detail. Then along would come some new guy who would supply another piece of the puzzle. More hashing over tactics would then occur.
When you follow that link to my long post full of legal references, you are looking at the compiled experience of 2-3 years work learning this stuff.
Here is the point that I hope helps with the feeling that there is so much to learn. You are right. There is a fair amount to absorb. But, its been compiled for you. You get to miss out on all the hashing back and forth to figure out how to do it. You don't have to spend two years learning it all by figuring it out from legal references and figuring it out by discussing it with others for two years. We have carefully tried to preserve enough of the trail so others can come on board and get up to speed without having to spend evenings for a couple years sorting it out.
Yes, we had a lot of fun--and frustration--doing it, so you owe us nothing. Not even thanks. Doing it was its own reward for most of us.
We've already discarded the dead ends, and sifted out the unimportant and inapplicable stuff so others wouldn't have to do that themselves. You only have the learning part, you get to skip the rest of the development.
Also, you don't have to learn everything at once before you OC. It is a rising scale of knowledge. You can get by initially on just a few things:
1) Know federal, state, and local gun laws.
2) Don't argue if asked to leave private property.
3) Carry a voice-recorder if you can afford one. VA is a one-party consent state.* Meaning only one person who is a party to the conversation has to consent to the recording. In this case, you.
4) Comply with police orders while politely verbally refusing consent.
5) Don't talk to police. Invoke the right to silence. And then actually shut up and stay shutted up.
6) Never consent to a police search.
7) Ask police if you are free to go. If you are, leave.
8) Always be polite. Especially during a police encounter.
Almost everything else is an expansion on these points somehow, someway.
The error would be to say to oneself, "Well this little bit is all I need to know." Then stop reading up on it. Then have a negative police encounter. Nobody has ever said, "I'm glad I wasn't fully knowledgeable when that punk cop got in my face."
By the way, one very common mistake, we hear it way too often: "I didn't think I'd need my voice-recorder." Nobody ever said, "I'm glad I left my voice-recorder at home".
*VA wire-tapping statute 19.2-62.B.2:
It shall not be a criminal offense under this chapter for a person to intercept a wire, electronic or oral communication, where such person is a party to the communication or one of the parties to the communication has given prior consent to such interception. (emphasis added by Citizen)
http://leg1.state.va.us/cgi-bin/legp504.exe?000+cod+19.2-62