CLINTON ATTACKS GOP GUN STANCE ON OHIO TOUR.

Byline: Alison Mitchell The New York Times

Wending his way by train past the rolling farm fields and cities of this battleground state in the November election, President Clinton on Monday seemed at times to be refighting the failed 1994 congressional election, this time from a position of greater strength.

At stop after stop, in Chillicothe, Columbus and Arlington, Clinton repeatedly told the crowds who gathered along the train tracks for his rallies that the 1993 law that he signed establishing a handgun waiting period and the 1994 ban on 19 kinds of semiautomatic assault weapons had made the streets of America safer.

``Back in 1994, I remember the other side going around and telling everybody in places like Ohio and Arkansas that the Democrats and the president had voted to take your guns way,'' Clinton said Monday morning, as rows of uniformed law-enforcement officers stood behind him on the grounds of the Columbus police academy. ``I didn't know a single deer hunter with an Uzi, not one,'' he crooned mockingly, his inflections becoming ever more Southern. ``I didn't understand it.''

He urged his supporters to tell their neighbors come hunting season that ``they're still carrying the same weapon they had in 1994.'' And Monday night in a field in Chillicothe, where 5,000 placard-waving enthusiasts gathered under the moon, the president included a more pointed jab at the Republicans.

``If you believed them when they misled you, you need to pay them back this time and tell them you don't appreciate being misled,'' he said. Near him on the makeshift stage sat Ted Strickland, a Democratic representative defeated in the route of 1994, who is fighting to win back his seat.

Opposition to gun control, particularly in the Midwest and West, was one of the reasons that the Democrats lost control of Congress in 1994, according to political analysts. But Clinton's strategists say that polls two years later now show widespread support for the measures, and his emphasis on crime-fighting has made him competitive on an issue that has traditionally been a Republican strength.

Clinton's law-enforcement emphasis Monday was particularly timed to preview the appearance of Sarah Brady, a Republican, at the Democratic National Convention later in the day. Brady became an impassioned gun control advocate after her husband, James, who was President Ronald Reagan's press secretary, was shot in the head during the 1981 assassination attempt on the president.

On the second day of his four-day trip aboard the train, ``The 21st Century Express,'' Clinton urged that the Brady bill, which bans felons from owning handguns, be extended to bar gun sales to people convicted of domestic violence, a misdemeanor.

Clinton also endorsed several other stalled criminal justice measures, including a ban on ``cop-killer bullets'' that can pierce bulletproof vests. ``Now again there are people who are against banning cop-killer bullets,'' the president said. ``They say it's just a slippery slope eroding their right to keep and bear arms.''

``I have never seen a deer in a Kevlar vest,'' he said. ``Never. If somebody can show me a picture of one out there hiding from our hunters, I'll be glad to reassess my position.'' Clinton's aides later acknowledged that no companies manufacture such bullets, but said that the president wanted to prevent that from happening.

As his train took him past farm fields, Clinton reveled in the small-town, populist politics that became his trademark in 1992. For miles, he stood at the back platform of his Pullman car, acknowledging the clusters of the curious who showed up trackside, waving from back porches or street crossings.

``Hi,'' Clinton shouted from a microphone, waving back. ``How are you? Hi. Hi.'' Late evenings, after days and nights of campaigning, Clinton leaves the train and stays at hotels along the way.