This final note today, about what happened in Newtown, Conn., this morning.

This isn’t gonna be something you usually get from Marketplace. But I’ve got four kids, as I think I’ve said before. My first reaction was that there wasn’t really an angle for us and that we’d leave it to others.

Then I thought about it. And we did some digging around. There are lobbying numbers and gun sales numbers and firearms permit numbers.

And then there’s this.

There are, according to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (PDF), more than 58,000 gunshops in this country.

There are fewer than 20,000 Starbucks (PDF) in the whole world.

Jay Carney, the president’s press secretary, said this morning that this isn’t the time to talk about gun control.

If today’s not the time, then when?