Mark Shea has a habit of saying that unless people do x, x always being a policy he endorses, they really are not pro-life. This of course is simply an attempt, at least among pro-lifers, to stop debate on x and says nothing about the merits of x as a policy. His latest attempt to do so is on the issue of smart guns, technology that purports to prevent a firearm from being fired, unless the owner is the one pulling the trigger. Go here to read one of his posts on the subject. Blogger Rebecca Frech, at her blog Shoved to Them, relates an incident to describe why Shea is wrong as a practical matter:

The argument seems to center around smart gun technology. Shea reasons that if gun owners were truly pro-life then we would support all efforts to create guns which would only fire for their owners, and then the world would be a better place. People who don’t support such legislation and research, even if they support the protection of life from conception to natural death, are not truly pro-life because they participate in a culture which accepts the possibility of death by gun shot (Mark and his readers haven’t mentioned how they aim to prevent people from being bludgeoned with a rifle butt or pistol whipped with a handgun).

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Go here to read the rest. Go here to read an article on smart gun tech. Go here to read a post at What Does Mike Think? on the problems of viewing smart gun technology as a panacea for gun violence.

When you need a gun in an emergency situation for your safety or the safety of others, you must be able to get to it quickly and use it quickly, all while adrenaline is pounding through your body and you are terrified. Questioning smart gun technology that may prevent your using your weapon in a life and death setting doesn’t make you not pro-life, it merely means that you have a different opinion from Mark Shea on an issue that doesn’t have the foggiest thing to do with abortion.