A peek at trigger-happy America

This might be surprising news to TV executives in Hollywood offices and Manhattan skyscrapers - and to a portion of the Showtime audience base - but on the outskirts of Denver, it’s no big deal. That’s why the customers at The Shootist, a family-owned gun and ammo shop, don’t mug for the cameras or put on airs as they explain, matter-of-factly, why they’ve arrived at the counter.

The six half-hour episodes of “Lock ’n Load’’ are essentially a glimpse through store security cameras, with occasional field trips to an outdoor firing range. The show comes from the creators of Bravo’s “Flipping Out,’’ and it stars an amiable salesman named Josh T. Ryan. He’s a gun enthusiast himself, but more to the point, he’s an actor, complete with slicked-back Elvis hair, a background doing Shakespeare, a radio-talk-show-host’s demeanor, and an executive producing credit on this show.

Selling guns, we’re told, is the job he’s taken to pay the bills, and he does it with TV-ready panache in this sprawling store with a shooting range in the basement. Ryan clearly knows his merchandise - from time to time, we see him shoot with his customers at an outdoor firing range - but he functions here more as an interviewer, part journalist and part therapist, drawing his customers out on the subject of why they want their heat.

The reasons vary, as do the demographics. A 14-year-old girl in braces likes taking target practice with her dad. A postal worker wants a complicated weapon to hang on his wall, like a dangerous work of art. A priest believes in the transformative spiritual power of the Second Amendment. (He explains this further in a segment shot in his home, as “Amazing Grace’’ plays in the background.)

And many of the customers want protection, offering explanations that suggest a certain level of paranoia and - in a world where a shocking, random murder can take place in rural New Hampshire - a certain level of cold realism. A youngish man says he wants to buy his first gun because his wife is pregnant, and he’s “feeling, like, a greater responsibility.’’ A burly man named Wayne declares that he wants to protect his community. He scoffs at the notion of calling the police: “911 is a mop-up crew to take pictures of your dead body laying in your house.’’

“Lock ’n Load’’ treats Wayne and many fellow customers as curiosities, and occasionally smacks of condescension. (The “Amazing Grace’’ sequence, in particular, crosses a line.) But the series also takes pains to avoid making judgments, and offers a parade of gun owners so vast that we end up with a broad view. Wayne is on a continuum, after all, along with the second-grader who gets a thrill from the firing range and the tall, poised woman who meets Josh for a friendly shootout. She turns out to be a ringer - the first US woman to win the NRA’s Triple Distinguished Expert qualification in pistol, rifle, and shotgun. She’s nothing like Wayne, but like him, she likes the feeling of cold steel in her hands and a trigger in her finger. This, Showtime viewers, is America, too.

Joanna Weiss can be reached at weiss@globe.com. For more on TV, go to www.viewerdiscretion.net.