The Wyatt Family (American Guns)

Wyatt Family
Ethnicity	American
Current region	Wheat Ridge, Colorado
Notable members	Rich Wyatt Renee Wyatt Kurt Wyatt Paige Wyatt

The Wyatt Family is a family of stars in the popular American reality TV show American Guns. Father of four Rich Wyatt owns a gun store called Gunsmokes Guns which was the main setting for the American Guns show. He operates the store with his family: Renee his wife, Paige, his daughter and his son Kurt along with the many other employees of Gunsmoke.

The family are also well known state-wide for their successful gun store offering firearms, firearms accessories, gunsmithing, and firearms instruction.

Family members

The Wyatt Family consists of:

Rich Wyatt

Father to Kurt and Paige, Rich is the founder and owner of American Guns' featured Gunsmoke Guns stores. He spent 22 years in law enforcement where he rose to the rank of Chief of Police in Alma, Colorado before retiring. His career then led him to the Fire service before he went on to become a firearms instructor building up his own business from the 1980s.^[1] He remains current CEO of Gunsmoke Guns. He also featured on Spike TV's Don't Be A Victim series - as an expert demonstrator of the Practical Tactical section.^[2]

Rich is estimated to have a fortune of over $10 million ^[3]

Due to Rich Wyatts time on a show that promoted the use of guns and his 22 years of experience in law enforcement and his time as chief of his local police, Rich has often been seen as a figurehead for many Americans who wish to preserve the entirety of the Second Amendment to the United States Constitution. However, many of Rich Wyatt's statements have become controversial. In an interview, Rich stated that he would never vote for anyone who didn't support the second amendment. Further, he attributed a rise in gun sales to the rumours Obama would further implement gun restrictions during the United States presidential election, 2012 ^[4]

Rich Wyatt is known for making history when he created the first working double barreled cannon with the aid of his Gunsmokes team. It has a custom ignition system. Despite safety concerns it wasn't difficult to build compared to the custom diamond M1911 pistol created as a gift for his wife.

Renee Wyatt

The stepmother to Kurt and Paige, Renee is Rich's second wife and co-owner of the Gunsmoke Guns stores. She acts as a Business manager for the company and manages all the accounts. Renee Wyatt, like her husband rich, Also has participated in outside work during the show's airing although since the shows cancellation she has largely kept out the public's light. Due to her role as a mothering figure on the show Renee Wyatt has appeared on multiple magazine articles giving cooking advice and on raising children, especially due to the atypical nature of the family being both on a reality show and as a prominent family within the gun sub-culture. As well as being parent guardians of Kurt and Paige, Rich and Renee also have two young daughters of their own. Brooke was born in 2008 and Ginger was born in 2009.

Kurt Wyatt

Kurt is the eldest son of Rich. He trained as a firearms instructor with a view to joining his father's enterprise. He specializes in engraving custom designs onto guns to sell, qualifying as an engraver aged only 13. His first engraving was a custom-built Henry '66 replica. His ultimate goal is to buy over his father's business and continue its success.^[5]

Paige Wyatt

Paige is the eldest daughter of Rich. She shares the interest of guns with the rest of her family and works with the rest of her family in Gunsmoke. She drives a 4x4 Jeep and is always in the company of her dog Malibu. Paige and her brother Kurt have healthy competition between them as they both strive to impress their dad on their knowledge and love of guns. She has her own gun collection as well as having her own website to sell Paige Wyatt merchandise.^[6]

Family roles in American Guns

The family were the sole stars of American Guns. A typical episode consisted of displays of guns which often incorporated his entire family. They would shoot and give brief reviews of guns. As well as that the shows often showed the family helping with gun conversions or even creating new guns from scratch on the premises. Often the entire family would participate in the guns' modification or construction though Renee would usually not play a large role. As Kurt is the only custom engraver on the premises he would often be given the task of etching the Gunsmoke’s logo or other designs onto the firearm. Rich would oversee the production and comment and expand on the work of the employees of Gunsmokes. Paige would not take part in the main production of firearms but would be the main person for sales or interacting with third party workers (like cobblers or custom painters). As well as that the show regularly had Rich and his son Kurt fly out on his helicopter to different locations in order to purchase guns from fellow collectors. This would often be the part of the show when Rich’s synonymous selling techniques would allow him to make a sale. He did this by challenging the collector to shooting completions or selling rare collectors guns or other memorabilia including bars of silver. They would also touch on Kurt’s shooting excellence and Rich’s wanting for him to take over the family business one day. The show featured the family interacting with the gunsmith employees, collectors and special guests including ‘The Bachelorette's’ Jesse Csincsak.^[7] This would end with the special guest having an opportunity to fire whatever gun they had made for them. The targets would often be rigged with explosives resulting in huge blasts when the guests fire at the last target contributing in engaging television.

Gunsmokes Store Burglary

On the 27th February 2013, the Gunsmoke's store was targeted by robbers broke into the store through a hole they created in the roof at 4.12AM. They left with 12 handguns and 3 rifles.

Despite Wheatridge police not releasing a description of the thieves, it is believed to have involved more than one person^[8]

Internal Revenue Service raid

In March 2013, the family was issued a search warrant for their business by the Internal Revenue Service. It is suspected that this was due to Rich Wyatt’s comments on gun legislation. Though American Guns was cancelled in 2012 the family still maintain the business and still incorporate Paige and Kurt into the running of the store.

The agent releasing the search warrant^[9] said:

"I respectfully submit that there is probable cause to believe that for the period of January 1, 2006 to present, the following items, which constitute evidence of the commission of contraband, the fruits of crime, or instrumentalities of violations of Title 26... for tax years 2006, 2007, 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 will be found at the premises."

The warrant allowed them to seize all personal files, bank statements, tax returns, all computers and any device that could be used to create, hold or store information.

This was due to an ongoing investigation into the Wyatt family for 2006? In which they were suspected of wrongful returnings of profits and losses in order to avoid paying tax.

In the affidavit Benjamin G. Hopping of the IRS said that he believed rich Wyatt entered into wrong allocation of returns both willingly and knowingly.

It later emerged that Rich Wyatt was not the owner of Gunsmokes as was originally believed. In 2008 Rich Wyatt sold Gunsmokes to his friend Victor Rodriguez during his divorce.^[10]

However despite the fact Rich did not own the guns store he was still found to have knowingly committed tax fraud as he personally signed fraudulent tax returns and wage reports. As of November 2014 the investigation is still ongoing.

The IRS so far found that Rich had failed to file individual tax returns for 2007, 2008 and 2009. He filed a 2011 return showing a loss of more than $98,000.

After American Guns and web series

The Wyatt family have engaged in an array of entrepreneurial activities including a family run web series based on gun history and gun culture on their YouTube channel, Gunsmoke Guns TV. As of November 2014, they had over seven and a half thousand subscribers.

Paige Wyatt runs her own website on which she currently sells prints and posters.^[11]

External links

• Discovery website
• American guns IMDB
• LinkedIn profile (Rich Wyatt)
• Gunsmoke Guns TV - Youtube Channel

References