Ironically, the people learning it now, assuming they are using proper sources, are likely being safer than those who learned from their grandmothers. I've seen people post about canning and provide enough details for me to know that the USDA would consider their methods unsafe. Not that the USDA is the be-all-end-all, but it's like safer sex, in that odds are relatively low that you'd get into trouble if you didn't follow the guidelines, but why take the chance?

I don't have a pressure canner and so only do boiling water bath canning. I don't recommend buying anything called a "canner" for that, though. Any large vessel will do, and most "canners" are not sized properly for canning, oddly enough.