Today’s expiration of a federal law banning the manufacture and importation of semiautomatic assault weapons has local police at odds with area gun dealers.

Police say the expiration of the ban will threaten the safety of the public by making guns typically used by militaries or police officers more available to drug dealers and other criminals. Local gun dealers argue that the ban was unnecessary to the point that it never even affected sales.

“It was just another feel-good law,” said Howell Copp, the owner of Howell’s Gun and Archery Center in Gray. “So the fact that it is expiring is really not a big thing.”

Signed by President Clinton in 1994, the ban outlawed the future manufacture and import sales of 19 specific weapons with military-style features. It also barred manufacturers from making high-capacity magazines that can hold more than 10 rounds of ammunition.

The legislation included an expiration date of Sept. 13, 2004.

Although President Bush supports the ban, he hasn’t pressured lawmakers to do so.

Supporters of the ban say the president’s inaction is the result of intense lobbying by the National Rifle Association and the pressures of a close presidential election.

“The NRA has said it won’t endorse Bush if he signs the ban,” said Cathie Whittenburg, executive director of Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence. “He’s trying to play it both ways and he’s hoping that people won’t notice.”

Whittenburg and other supporters of the ban, including most of Maine’s police chiefs, say the ban is needed to protect the lives of innocent people.

Semiautomatic assault weapons are designed to fire bullets at rapid speed, reducing the number of times the shooter has to stop and reload. In addition, the guns can have features such as silencers, folding stocks, flash suppressers and bayonets.

The ban outlaws any semiautomatic assault weapon with two or more of those features.

“I believe there are legitimate people who collect these guns and use them for target practice,” said Lewiston police Chief William Welch. “But they always get into the wrong hands.”

Welch cited federal statistics showing that crimes involving assault weapons declined by as much as two-thirds since the law went into effect.

Local gun dealers see it differently.

They claim the ban hardly changed anything in Maine, because it allowed dealers to continue selling the high-powered guns or large-capacity magazines they had in stock before the law went into effect.

Although the prices on some of the equipment went up as a result of the ban and will likely go down when the ban expires, the dealers do not expect the remaining inventory to sell off any faster.

“I don’t think it’s going to affect my business that much,” said Doris Stanley, owner of Center Fire Gun Shop in Livermore.

Robert Brown, the owner of Stone Gunshop in Buckfield, wondered if the ban might even have the opposite effect, making the semiautomatic weapons less appealing to customers.

“It’s a novelty-type thing,” he said. “Just because the government tells people they can’t have one, they want it.”

Local gun dealers say people buy them for target practice, shooting competitions and home protection.

“The best gun for a police officer is the best gun for someone trying to protect themselves,” Howell said.

Whittenburg, of the Maine Citizens Against Handgun Violence, doesn’t buy the argument that people need guns that can fire up to 30 bullets in five seconds to protect themselves.

“If you are going to be shooting these guns off in your house, bullets will be flying through walls and everywhere else,” she said. “People buy these guns because it’s fun to blow things up with them.”

Even though gun dealers may still have them in stock, Whittenburg said, it is unreasonable to believe that the expiration of the ban will not make them more accessible to people who misuse them.

Welch could not recall a shooting in Lewiston that involved a semiautomatic assault weapon. But police have confiscated them from drug dealers and other criminals, he said.