<p>You can already mostly do this by abusing the URL processing algorithm, but it's an extra step to get the URL (you'll have to manually edit).</p>

<p>How? When you put in an <em>answer</em> post ID into the URL where it expects a <em>question</em> ID, you get taken to the answer automatically!</p>

<p>Example linking to Jeff's answer:</p>

<p>Long link (from the "Link" button): <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/63841/show-a-short-link-for-answers-too-not-just-questions/63846#63846">http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/63841/show-a-short-link-for-answers-too-not-just-questions/63846#63846</a></p>

<p>Short link: <a href="http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/63846">http://meta.stackexchange.com/questions/63846</a></p>

<p>Using the shorter link, you automatically get redirected to the long link.</p>

<p><strike>The only way I could see this getting shorter is something like <a href="http://meta.stackoverflow.com/p/">http://meta.stackoverflow.com/p/</a> ('p' is for posts) followed by either a question ID or answer ID.</strike> Edit: this is already implemented as /q/.</p>