LAST WEEK’S RESULTS:

Title: MGWCC #888 — “One Way or Another”
Prompt: This puzzle’s contest answer is a 15-letter phrase.
Answer: RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, found by 325 solvers, of which 273 were solo solves

Tougher than usual for Week 1, certainly with a tough Week 2’s solving numbers. Unique and interesting mechanism, though: the military march cadence of “Left, right, left, right, left” was its core, and the word MARCH was embedded in all three of the long down entries:

3-D: [Fourth wall creator, on stages] = PROSCENIUM ARCH
7-D: [Non-profit founded by FDR, casually] = THE MARCH OF DIMES
14-D: [Microsoft Word feature] = GRAMMAR CHECKER

And then a slightly oddly-placed reveal entry, whose placement ended at the lower-rightmost square in the grid as you’d expect, but it got there as a down, not an across. Curious! It was: [Common march cadence in the military, for short] = LRLRL. That’s the “Left, right, left right, left” one. Anecdotally that downward placement was a little tricky, but with the word MARCH in those three long downs this had to be relevant.

And it was: “march” to the left, right, left, right, and left of those three sets of five letters, and you get RIGHT / TO BEA / RARMS. Why would anyone want to be a “rarms,” whatever that is? Oh wait, that’s contest answer RIGHT TO BEAR ARMS, both a military and a meta-mechanism reference, and the perfect 15 letters it had to be. Thanks to Gridmaster J for the solution grid above.

THIS WEEK’S INSTRUCTIONS:

Today’s puzzle is Week 2 of 4 in June. Instructions:

This puzzle’s contest answer, which is 10 letters long, is something I hope you won’t have with this puzzle.

–Matt