Our request for a license or sponsorship relates only to tattoo-specific and piercing-specific tools and equipment used only for tattoo and piercing application and is not the result of any perceived health threat. Far from it: Tattoo and Piercing do not pose a health threat more so than any other occupation according to the CDC.
THAT IS GOOD NEWS AND WE SHOULD PROUDLY DECLARE IT.
Oppose the exaggerated health LIES whenever you hear them.
The compelling most often voiced reason t8undermining the livelihoods of those who must pay taxes and the costs associated with HEALTH STANDARDS meaning full partnership in society paying our fair share. Shop owners only ask for a level playing field. Shop owners are not against tattooing or piercing in homes or elsewhere if HEALTH STANDARDS are met, specifically sterile products and tools and adhering to Universal Precautions. Frankly, this is not likely. However, this is not to say itinerant tattooing inherently poses a threat. This concern is then bundled with the challenge of many more tattooists and piercers competing for the same customers at cut-rate pricing. A third commonly heard reason is to keep amateur work from masquerading as professional work, confusing buyers. Buyer beware may be good advice but not sufficient to protect us from "sales-targeted" techniques. Tattoo consumers need help to assure they will get what is advertised, so do tattooists who are compelled to license, and Unimax who discourages purchases on marketplace sites by businesses with no heart for tattoo or piercing.

Twenty years ago we started asking, rather insisting on recognition of our rights as citizens, to be part of the system. We won the battle but now are loosing the war to rule-making bodies not requesting input from those who will be affected by their rules.  We ask for a pledge from the rule-makers to provide outreach to the tattoo and piercing industries when legislation or proposed rule changes are introduced. This would include: organizations looking to participate, tattoo artists, shop owners, and suppliers. It would go a long way to foster real democracy in practice.  Anything less begins to look like tyranny, as if tattoo/piercing voices were irrelevant.
Respectfully submitted by Westley Wood

Restirctions pertain to those items that are intended to be purchased, to be used exclusively for the commercial application of tattooing or piercing, mostly thought of as needles, inks, machines, forceps and such. Anyone is free to purchase other items. This prohibition does not limit other reasonable requests for legitimate non-tattoo use such as academia. Records are kept of all such purchases.
You are free to use these original arguments and expositions provide properly
sourced to the origin: Unimax or Wes Wood.
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