If automatic rifles were banned, I'd be disappointed, since they're fun to shoot and a law banning them would be unconstitutional.
They are banned. You can not manufacture one, nor can you go out and pay a licensed manufacturer to make one and sell it to you. You can't possess any modern automatic weapons made in the last 20 years, nor may you possess most made in all the prior history of our nation.
Of course, there is a small set of old, used, andjury-rigged automatic weapons you may possess. Unfortunately, there is only about 1 for every 2000 adult citizens, so you have to pay at least about10 times what they should be priced at to get an owner to sell it to you.