To answer the question, yes you can just go and buy a machete as long as you are over 18. You can buy a them in garden shops no problem. You can also buy a butcher's meat cleaver, a tree felling axe, a chef's knife with a 2ft blade or an electric chain saw all are fully legal and all can easily kill people.
Luckily we are not the USA or he could have bought a machine gun and a few thousand rounds of ammunition and we would be looking at another gun massacre.