Contest Puzzle!

[Bananarchy]

The meta answer is a firearms manufacturer.

Get the meta answer in to me peter.ba...@gmail.com by Christmas morning (12:01am CST, Dec 25, 2014, specifically). Despite the timing, though, the meta and puzzle have nothing to do with the holiday season, and may even be downright un-christmas-y. I came up with the idea and wrote the puzzle a little while ago, but just now got around to finishing up the cluing and putting the finishing touches on it. Anyway, hope you have some fun with it. It's about a week 2.5 or 3 on the MGWCC scale, if that means anything to you, and the puzzle itself is probably in the range of a Thursday NYT.

Oh yeah, and the prizes. One randomly selected entrant with the correct answer will receive their choice of one 2015 indie crossword subscription. That would include Fireball, Matt Gaffney's Weekly Crossword Contest, American Values, AriesXWord, and Rows Gardens. I'll probably get you any other indie series subscription you want, but I can't think of any others off the top of my head.

I posted this to the site and gave it limited social media exposure on Wednesday night, but I somehow spaced on sending this out to the Google Group until now. So, tell you what: if, less than 24 hours before the deadline, you still want more time, email me at peter.ba...@gmail.com and let me know. I'll give you an extra day. 

Enjoy!

~p