ASHINGTON - Efforts to fashion a gun-control compromise inched forward in Congress yesterday, despite a speech from Senator Bob Smith urging voters to defeat senators who support such legislation, regardless of their party.
Smith, an independent who bolted from the Republican Party this month, likened the Senate's gun-control supporters to agents of Fidel Castro's government in Cuba, who, he said, went door to door confiscating guns after they gained power.
''It is interesting,'' Smith said. ''Tyrannical governments taking our guns, members of the Senate and the media taking our guns.''
The New Hampshire senator, who is expected to run for the White House on a third-party ticket, appealed twice to ''my fellow Americans'' in his lengthy remarks, and vowed to filibuster any gun-control compromise that returns to the Senate floor.
The fate of gun-control legislation is unclear in the Republican-controlled Congress, despite a surge in public support after shootings last spring at Columbine High School in Colorado.
The Senate approved legislation in May to crack down on juvenile crime, with a handful of gun-control provisions attached. Those provisions include a requirement for instant background checks on all sales at gun shows, a requirement that safety devices be sold with all handguns, and a ban on the importation of certain high-capacity ammunition clips.
The House measure contains none of those provisions, although efforts at negotiating a compromise are expected. For more than a week, Smith had blocked the Senate from taking the routine parliamentary steps needed to begin those talks. Lawmakers voted 77-22 yesterday to go ahead, though, and the New Hampshire lawmaker announced he would fall back and wait for compromise talks to conclude before taking his next step.
At the same time, parliamentary rules required the Senate to delete at the last minute the provision relating to high-ammunition clips. It is expected to be reinserted by House and Senate negotiators in a final compromise.
Smith has been treated gently by the Senate's GOP leadership despite his recent defection in what aides say is a calculated bid by majority leader Trent Lott and others to avoid turning him into a magnet for the conservative voters the Republican Party needs.
In his remarks on the Senate floor, Smith appealed to voters to begin paying close attention to what he said were attempts to trample on the Second Amendment's guarantee to possess arms.
''And you need to start throwing those people out of here,'' he said. ''That's what you need to do. I don't care what party they are. It's irrelevant.''
He also spoke scathingly of the news media, which he said is solidly aligned with the forces advocating gun control. ''It would be interesting to take a little poll to find out how many of these news media pack a little sidearm somewhere to protect themselves.''
Smith also made a passing reference to O.J. Simpson, who was acquitted in 1995 on charges of murdering his wife. Simpson, he said, should have gone to jail.
