Liberals and conservatives alike are cranky at Colorado State Representative Joe Salazar, who reportedly said that women are more emotional and can’t be trusted with guns and keep thinking they’re going to be raped and shooting innocent people. Liberals are furious that he’s a sexist moron who thinks ladies are paranoid pinheads; conservatives are furious that his desire to strip the guns from the manicured hands of the fairer sex will make them get sexually assaulted more.

But just as we parse the words of apologies, we need to parse the words that trigger the apologies…especially when they’re reported in the endless game of telephone that is the media. And the sitch is more nuanced than it seems. (In our sound-bite culture? SHOCKER.)

You recall that we felt there was context needed to SF 49er Chris Culliver’s pre-apology stupidhead statements about gay people. The context then: A shock jock and former Howard Stern sidekick had just asked the player how many white girls he was going to bang over the weekend. Then how he does with the ladies. Then, “How about gay guys? Are there any gay guys on the team?” Culliver clearly understood the question to mean, “Do you bang gay guys?” When he replied, “I don’t do gay guys,” he was speaking literally — he doesn’t bang gay guys. Now, he still said super-dumb, unacceptable things (that he was uncomfortable with the idea of gay guys in the locker room, that players shouldn’t come out until 10 years after they’d retired) but there was some entrapment going on. The video and audio were removed from the shock jock’s web site, so the media kept on reporting the same incomplete story, recycling the same quotes in an endless (you should pardon the expression) circle jerk.

The same thing is happening with Salazar. The context: Salazar, a Democrat, was testifying about a law allowing concealed weapons on college campuses. He was trying to express his opinion that carrying a hidden gun doesn’t necessarily make women safer (a statement most anti-gun and some pro-gun folks would agree with; plus studies show that carrying a weapon increases the odds it will be used against you).

The media are reporting that he said that women are too emotional to make good shooting decisions and/or are overly paranoid due to their crazy lady hormones. There are no direct quotes of him saying these things. There are paraphrases. (Jezebel’s version: “Colorado Rep. Thinks College Ladies Don’t Know When They’re Going to be Raped.”)

What Salazar actually said:

“There are some gender inequities on college campuses. This is true. And universities have been faced with that situation for a long time. That’s why we have call boxes. It’s why we have safe zones. That’s why we have the whistles. Because you just don’t know who you’re going to be shooting at. And you don’t know, if you feel like you’re going to be raped or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be, that you pop out that gun and pop a round at somebody.”

Jezebel punctuated the most damning part of the statement, which you can watch and listen to below (or on the right-wing YouTube channel I plucked it from), thusly: “And you don’t know if you feel like you’re going to be raped.” That sounds pretty horrible.

But on the video, there’s an audible pause after the word “know.” So what Salazar actually says is: “And you don’t know — if you feel like you’re going to be raped or if you feel like someone’s been following you around or if you feel like you’re in trouble when you may actually not be — that you pop out that gun and pop a round at somebody.”

Is this still potentially offensive to women (as well as ungrammatical)? Yes. Is it worth comparing Salazar to Todd Akin and his rape comments? No. Most of Salazar’s pre-politics career was spent as a civil rights violations inspector. He’s not exactly a women’s-rights-trampler.

Given all this, if the Representative’s sorry-if apologies sound a little half-assed, I think we can attribute it to being irked at being played as a political pawn and being incompletely quoted. Here’s Salazar’s first non-apology:

“We were having a public policy debate on whether or not guns makes people safer on campus. I don’t believe they do. That was the point I was trying to make. If anyone thinks I’m not sensitive to the dangers women face, they’re wrong. I am a husband and father of two beautiful girls, and I’ve spent the last decade defending women’s rights as a civil rights attorney.”

And here’s his even-more-defensive second:

“I want to reiterate my point from yesterday; I am deeply sorry. The words I said near the end of a 12-hour debate are not reflective of the point I was trying to make. I am a husband and father of two girls. I care deeply about their safety, and I would never question a woman’s ability to discern a threat. My larger point was about how more guns on campus don’t mean you’re more safe. I used a bad example. Again, I’m sorry.”

If you’re crap-apology scorekeeping at home, note the “I don’t mean the words I said!” (1 pt), “I was working crazy-hard and was SO TIRED!” (1 pt, and bipartisan shout-out, Chris Matthews and gay advocate Andy Humm!) “I love [group I insulted]!” (1 pt), and “You misunderstood my intent!” (1 pt). Bonus point: In his first apology he said he was not the “boorish, macho, Neanderthal Latino” depicted by conservatives — semi-obliquely accusing your accusers of racism brings the lousy apology score to 5! Impressive! Yet we cut him a break, because context DOES matter in the land of apologizing; sadly, context is often sorely lacking in our knee-jerk, hummingbird-attention-span news cycle.

And as of yet, the political and media body do not seem to have ways of shutting that whole thing down.