Automatic weapons have all been registered in the US since the 1930s. You pay a fee if you want to get one. The ATF gets fingerprints and a photo, probably run a pretty good background check. Then you get to find one that was made before 1986 because none could be registered after 1986 onwards. That means they're limited in quantity and probably either really expensive or in really bad shape ... since you also can't repair them (legally, at least), odds are that their numbers are declining. That's "automatic weapons."
The upshot is that while the kits to convert semi-automatic to automatic are legal, you can't legally use them. It's like the gadgets that we used to get to be able to record copyrighted DVDs, the things that decoded or stripped out the video-protection signal that made copies impossible. You couldn't legally use them--that's copyright enfringement. But you could buy and own them. (Then a deal was struck with the manufacturer to stop selling them, but you could still own them. Just couldn't use them. Legally.)
Apparently you can also get an assault rifle that's more recent if you're a registered firearms dealer and a law-and-order organization request an evaluation sample for you. Then you can get a 'sample' for 'evaluation' and keep it as long as you're in business. After that, presumably, the sample returns home. Presumably the thinking is that the 'evaluation' is for the law-and-order organization to inspect and evaluate it while it's securely held by a registered firearms dealer. But the dealer can't sell that particular weapon or hold on to it (again, legally) when his business lapses or is de-registered.
So, yes, an 18-year-old can buy an automatic weapon. I've been around a lot of gun people and I've never seen one. And you won't find them in stores. It's even more true that "it's very unlikely that any given 18-year-old could manage to buy an automatic weapon."
As for gays buying a wedding cake, so far we've heard of two examples where it didn't happen, and presumably there are more. Still, I have to assume that someplace in the US in the last few years at least one other gay couple's tried to buy a wedding cake and succeeded.
So, yes, "gays can't buy a wedding cake" is true in a few, perhaps many, instances, but even more true is that "pretty much gays can buy as many wedding cakes as they want wherever they want."
Usually we look for the generalization and say that's the typical case; we don't look for exceptional instances and declare those to be the most common. Thing is, if you just look at the news and assume that the news is a reasonable fair sampling of reality for some issues, you get a (really skewed) version of a wildly non-veridical media-constructed "reality". It's good to step back from that bit of fiction from time to time and take a break to reality.
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