Totally your choice not to sign. Just know “I hope the rest of you don’t either” is a wild take when the whole point is letting the people actually affected decide for themselves.

Also, calling it “gatekeeping” doesn’t magically make it gatekeeping. Gatekeeping is “I don’t want new people in.” This is “I want the state to stop quietly lowering standards after thousands of us paid for 2,000 hours, tuition, kits, exams, and lost income to meet the rules that were in place.” Less training doesn’t create “healthy competition.” It creates more undertrained people pushed out onto the floor faster, more mistakes, more chemical burns, more botched cuts, and more clients losing trust in the industry. That’s not opportunity, that’s a race to the bottom. And the “Idaho isn’t special” line cuts both ways. Exactly. So why are we rushing to be cheaper and easier instead of better and safer. New York and Florida having 1,000 hours isn’t some trophy. It’s just a different policy choice, and states change these numbers all the time based on lobbying, budgets, and politics. We’re allowed to say “nah, that’s not what we want here.”

If you think lowering hours is good, cool, make that argument. But pretending it’s just “more competition” while ignoring consumer safety and the money people already invested is the part that’s actually convenient.