As "American Chopper" was to motorcycles, "American Guns" was to firearms. It showcased the goings-on at the Wyatt family's Gunsmoke Guns shop in Wheat Ridge, Colorado. In December 2012, Discovery Channel canceled "American Guns" and pulled reruns, too. The network claimed it had decided weeks earlier to not renew the show, but it was only announced after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut. But even if that hadn't happened, Discovery likely would've distanced itself from "American Guns" soon anyway, because a massive scandal broke out at Gunsmoke Guns.
Shortly after a 2013 break-in and robbery, the IRS closed down Gunsmoke to perform a search. A month later, an affidavit related to that search was made public. It all goes back to 2010, when the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives received a tip that Gunsmoke, under manager Rich Wyatt, possessed six illegal firearms. That prompted a closer look at Gunsmoke's records, which revealed that the Wyatts didn't actually own the store as their show implied, but Wyatt's signature appeared on sales tax returns from 2008 to 2011. Nobody's signature appeared on several other years' worth of tax returns because they weren't filed for a number of years. The government also alleged that the Wyatts underreported their wages to steal from the business, as evidenced by multiple large real estate and car purchases. In 2018, Rich Wyatt received a 78-month prison sentence for gun dealing and tax charges.
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