I'd say it's much better to try and find a course somewhere to learn to weld, as it's quite a difficult thing to learn. Most further education colleges have welding courses, maybe give some of them a call.
I learnt MIG, TIG and stick welding at school. I only ever used gas as a heat source, not for welding. There was someone experienced to teach me about it - it's a lot more than just the physical motion of the torch, you need to know about the base metal, filler metal, electrode material, types of gas, current, wire feed, gas flow, flux types, why each type is better than another, electrode polarity etc. It's quite overwhelming.
The other thing with learning somewhere, rather than buying your own, is that you get to use decent equipment. I know there is the saying "a bad workman blames his tools", but it's a right pain trying to learn to weld (especially MIG) with crappy equipment. Ed used to have a cheap SiP MIG welder, and I always used to wind him up about how poor his welding was - until I used the thing and almost smashed it up because I got so angry. Wirefeed was random (slow or really fast, and you had no choice). Current also seemed unpredictable. Gas flow wasn't high to weld even in the slightest breeze. He's got a new one that works now though.
Unless you plan on welding a lot, the machine is a big investment. You are limited to what you can do at home; a normal MIG welder is useless at bodywork, gasless is good outdoors (but expensive to run), TIG is really hard to do, but the only good way to weld ally, gas is most versatile, but hardest to learn and most dangerous.
