S&W Model 909 9mm questions.

O.K. I just bought my first gun, a used S&W model 909 9mm. Having second thoughts that I bought the right one but nonetheless it's mine now. I went to the shooting range today for the first time after having only read the manual and have not actually been shown how to use this thing...probably stupid but I was anxious to shoot it. My problem was that it seemed the only way I could fire the gun was to flip the safety on then back off every time before I could fire it. I would load the clip, pull back the slide to put one in the chamber, turn off the safety, and fire it. Then I would have to put the safety on then back off to fire it again. What am I doing wrong? Something stupid I assume. Does this make any sense? I'm a newbie so please don't harass me too badly. lol

It isn't you,it's the gun.I don't know the internals to Smiths but for some reason the trigger bar or whatever isn't transitioning from the double action stroke to the single action function when the hammer is cocked.You're going to have to find a pistolsmith that knows S&W to have it fixed.I would say it will probably be a fairly easy and cheap fix,but can't guarrantee it.