TERROR IN OKLAHOMA CITY : Explosion Could Blunt GOP Anti-Gun Control Strategy : Violence: Just as left-wing groups in 1960s pained the Democrats, so could right-wing militias haunt the Republicans. NRA assails ‘hate groups.’

The intense focus now descending on the militantly anti-government, anti-gun control militia movement could present Republican leaders with some of the same problems that confronted Democrats as extremist groups flourished on the left during the 1960s.

When the Weatherman and Black Panther movements erupted into public view at the tail end of the 1960s, their violent acts politically damaged not only the anti-war and civil rights causes but ultimately the Democratic Party. Now, in the aftershock of the Oklahoma City bombing, some are questioning whether Republican and conservative causes could face similar repercussions from the actions of the nebulous citizens’ militias which take a mainstream anti-government, anti-tax and anti-gun control message to an extreme.

Though some commentators have asked whether the broad Republican drive to retrench government somehow contributed to an atmosphere that produced the attack, a series of political leaders across the ideological spectrum have rejected that broad-brush association. “I don’t think you can blame people’s statements being for or against the government for someone taking violence into their hands, plain and simple,” said Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y).

But suspected links between Timothy J. McVeigh, the principal suspect in the case, and the intensely anti-gun control militia movement could greatly complicate a more narrow set of issues, both for the GOP and for one of its principal constituencies: gun owners represented by groups such as the National Rifle Assn. Repeated examples over the last quarter century suggest that mainstream groups almost inescapably get caught in the backlash against extremists who extend their concerns to the level of dangerous obsession--whether anti-war protesters who manufacture bombs, anti-abortion advocates who stalk doctors or environmentalists who spike trees.

“It is no more fair to hold Republicans responsible for the tragedy in Oklahoma City than it was to hold Democrats responsible for activities of the Weather Underground,” Democratic pollster Mark Mellman said. “But in the 1960s, the left was stained by the activities of the Weather Underground and the right is going to be stained by these kinds of extremists.”

Most often, the impact is more subtle than the public seeing a party or cause as directly sympathetic to violent acts like the Oklahoma City bombing. The broadest political reverberations can come when mainstream groups are accused of encouraging extremist behavior with inflammatory rhetoric--or of supporting agendas uncomfortably similar to those of groups on the fringe. “To be associated with extremism of the right or left is the kiss of death,” Mellman noted.

The power of that dynamic was demonstrated in 1991 when then President George Bush agreed to sign civil rights legislation that he had vetoed earlier as a “quota bill.” One reason Bush and Senate Republicans lost their enthusiasm for contesting the bill was the prominence of former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke, who was raising arguments virtually identical to their own against the legislation during his campaign for the Louisiana governorship that fall.

In that same way, the violence in Oklahoma City--with its link to shadowy paramilitary groups passionately opposed to gun control and the suggestion that it may have been motivated by revenge on federal agents involved in the siege two years ago of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco--may all complicate the Republican drive to roll back gun-control laws, and rein in the agencies that enforce them.

House Republicans have been planning to bring to the floor by mid-May legislation to repeal the ban on semiautomatic assault weapons approved as part of the crime bill last summer. Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole (R-Kan.) has promised to act on such a bill by this summer.

Several reports have suggested that opposition to that ban has been a powerful recruiting tool for paramilitary right-wing groups around the country, including the Michigan Militia with which McVeigh and other figures in the case have been linked.

Over the weekend, supporters of gun control were quick to argue that the militia movement’s eagerness to restore legal access to the prohibited assault weapons is evidence of the need to maintain the ban. “We can’t think of a better reason to maintain the current ban than to keep these guns away from these extremist groups,” said Dennis Henigan, general counsel for Handgun Control Inc.

But some Republican legislators in television interviews over the weekend noted that assault weapons were not involved in the attack on the Oklahoma City building and sharply questioned the relevance of the tragedy to the gun control debate.

Other conservatives noted Sunday that despite McVeigh’s military background no one was pointing a finger of responsibility at the Army, in which he served two or three years and from which he was honorably discharged.

Such arguments notwithstanding, several Republican political strategists said Sunday that it would not be surprising if the House, at the least, decides to delay the drive to repeal the assault weapons ban. “May is just the most difficult time imaginable in which to do this,” said one well-placed GOP operative.

The reverberations from Oklahoma also could crimp Republican scrutiny of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, the agency charged with enforcing gun laws and a longtime target of both the NRA and extremist groups.

Both the House and Senate Judiciary committees have been planning hearings to publicize gun owner complaints against the bureau--including allegations that it and the FBI mishandled the siege of the Branch Davidian compound that culminated in a fiery shootout exactly two years before the Oklahoma City bombing. The FBI has presented evidence that McVeigh was enraged over the Waco siege--which has become a powerful symbol of government oppression to the militia movement--and had visited the site. Now, many suspect that those hearings will be postponed, perhaps indefinitely.

Both the FBI and firearms bureau have absorbed substantial mainstream questioning over their performance in Waco, including critical internal reviews in both agencies. But as concern shifts toward the ability of law enforcement officials to monitor extremist groups, some believe that those who have been the most vehement about the agencies’ dealings with the Branch Davidians and with other gun owners could find themselves in an exposed position.

For instance, first-term Rep. Helen Chenoweth (R-Ida.), who was appointed by House Speaker Newt Gingrich to a task force on gun laws, convened a hearing last month in Boise to hear charges that federal agents were intimidating local residents with “excessive force.” At the hearing--which was attended by more than a dozen members of a local militia, according to the Idaho Spokesman-Review--Chenoweth said that she would introduce legislation prohibiting federal agents from carrying firearms unless they receive written permission from local sheriffs.

On Sunday, Chenoweth aide Al Garesche said that she still intends to press that issue, but first plans to introduce a bill requiring all federal agents to receive written permission from local sheriffs before making any arrests, searches or seizures of property.

The shifting environment is likewise exposing the NRA to questions about its posture toward the federal law enforcement agencies. On Friday, the 3.5-million-member organization issued a statement condemning the bombing, declaring its “contempt for terrorists or hate groups” and affirming that “the authorities who play a role in bringing the terrorists to justice have no stronger ally than the NRA.”

But gun control advocates like Henigan argue that in the past NRA officials have accused the government of undertaking a “war” against gun owners and condemned federal law enforcement officials in language that “is very close” to the rhetoric of the far-right militia movements.

No NRA officials could be reached for comment on Henigan’s charge Sunday. But in his recent book, “Guns, Crime, and Freedom,” Wayne LaPierre, the NRA’s top official, compared the FBI assault on the Branch Davidian complex to the Nazi liquidation of the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw. And in March, the NRA purchased a full-page advertisement in USA Today that displayed a Blade Runner-esque scene of heavily armed and armored agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms breaking down a door in a disorienting flash of light. The copy below condemned the agency for “storm trooper tactics” and criticized U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno for using “lethal force against innocents”--a reference to the Waco shootout that killed at least a dozen children.